The Herald (South Africa)

Kiev accuses Russia after witness shot

Kremlin refutes state terrorism allegation­s

- Pavel Polityuk and Alexei Kalmykov

UKRAINE accused Russia of state terrorism after a former Russian lawmaker and key witness in a treason case against former leader Viktor Yanukovich was shot dead in broad daylight outside a hotel in central Kiev yesterday.

Russia called the allegation absurd.

Former parliament­arian Denis Voronenkov had been killed by an assailant who was armed with a pistol and had later died in hospital after being shot by Voronenkov’s bodyguard, police said.

The assailant’s identity was not disclosed.

Voronenkov fled to Ukraine last year and was helping the Ukrainian authoritie­s build a treason case against Yanukovich, Ukraine’s pro-Russia former president.

Voronenkov had also spoken out against Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, though he voted for it at the time.

Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko said the killing “is an act of state terrorism on the part of Russia, which [Voronenkov] was forced to leave for political reasons”.

“Voronenkov was one of the main witnesses of Russian aggression against Ukraine and, in particular, the role of Yanukovich regarding the deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine.”

Relations between Kiev and Moscow are at an all-time low after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in March 2014 and the subsequent outbreak of separatist fighting in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region, which has killed more than 10 000 people.

Poroshenko said it was no accident that Voronenkov had been shot on the same day that a warehouse storing tank ammunition was blown up at a Ukrainian military base.

Moscow denied any involvemen­t in Voronenkov’s murder.

“We believe all the falsehoods that can already be heard about much-hyped Russian involvemen­t [in the killing] are absurd,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying.

Voronenkov, 45, had been placed on a Russian federal wanted list in connection with an alleged $5-million (R62.5-million) property fraud.

He came to Ukraine with his wife, opera singer Maria Maksakova, who was also an MP.

Voronenkov was gunned down on his way to meet another former Russian parliament­arian, Ilya Ponomarev, who was the only member of the Duma who voted against Crimea’s annexation.

Television footage showed Ponomarev and Maksakova leaving the scene in a car with Ukraine’s general prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko.

Lutsenko called the shooting a cynical murder and “a typical show execution of a witness by the Kremlin”. – Reuters

 ?? Picture: AFP ?? AT THE SCENE: Policemen support a shocked Maria Maksakova, wife of Denis Voronenkov, near his body in the centre of Kiev yesterday
Picture: AFP AT THE SCENE: Policemen support a shocked Maria Maksakova, wife of Denis Voronenkov, near his body in the centre of Kiev yesterday

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