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Putin critic shot dead in downtown Kiev
Journal Staff Report

KIEV, March 23 – A former Russian lawmaker and staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin was shot dead Thursday in downtown Kiev in an apparent assassination, authorities said.

President Petro Poroshenko called the assassination of Denis Voronenkov, who fled to Ukraine last year, “an act of state terrorism,” and blamed Russia for the attack.

Voronenkov was helping the Ukrainian authorities build a treason case against pro-Russian former President Viktor Yanukovych, who is hiding in Russia.

Voronenkov has spoken out against Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014, although he voted for the move at the time.

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 Yanukovych regarding the deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine."

U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also blamed Putin for the attack.

“This horrific crime marks the continuation of a campaign of KGB-style brutality designed to intimidate anyone who dares to oppose the tyranny of Vladimir Putin,” McCain said in the statement.

“Sadly, Denis Voronenkov has joined others like Sergei Magnitsky and Boris Nemtsov who have paid with their lives for speaking the truth, for in Putin’s Russia, there is no greater crime,” McCain said.

Former parliamentarian Denis Voronenkov was killed by an assailant who was armed with a pistol and later died in hospital after being shot in the chest and head by Voronenkov's bodyguard, police said. The assailant's identity was not disclosed.

Russia called the allegations of Russia’s involvement “an absurd.”

"We believe that all the falsehoods that can already be heard about much-hyped Russian involvement are absurd," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Voronenkov, 45, had been placed on a Russian federal wanted-list in connection with an alleged $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 the annexation of Crimea.

"There's an obvious theory - I've said that Voronenkov wasn't a crook, but a deadly dangerous investigator for Russian officials," Ponomarev wrote on Facebook.

Television footage showed Ponomarev and Maksakova leaving the scene in a car together with Ukraine's General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko.

Lutsenko called the shooting a "cynical murder".
"He had provided investigators of the military prosecutor's office with highly important (witness) testimony for the case. This was a typical show execution of a witness by the Kremlin," Lutsenko said.

Yanukovych fled Ukraine during the 2013-2014 Maidan street protests, which he said were tantamount to a "coup" organized by armed nationalist radicals. (nr/rt/ez)




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