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23Mar17

Former Russian Lawmaker Is Shot To Death Outside Hotel In Kiev

Denis Voronenkov, who fled Russia last October and has criticized President Vladimir Putin's government, was killed in Kiev Thursday, in an apparent assassination that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is reportedly calling "state terrorism."

Voronenkov had just left the Premier Palace hotel when he was shot twice in the head on a sidewalk along a busy street, according to Kiev Post. Citing police, the newspaper adds that both Voronenkov's bodyguard and the attacker were wounded and are now in the hospital.

The killing has the "handwriting" of the Russian special services, Poroshenko said in a statement Thursday. According to a translation by Reuters, the president said the murder of Voronenkov was "an act of state terrorism on the part of Russia, which he was forced to leave for political reasons."

Poroshenko called Voronenkov a key witness in Ukraine's inquiry into former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Russia's military involvement in the country.

When he fled Russia, Voronenkov did so along with his wife, Maria Maksakova, who was also a former lawmaker. She was seen at the site of her husband's killing today, being restrained by police and emergency workers.

Here's how Radio Free Europe recently described Voronenkov:

    "A former Communist Party legislator elected in the 2011 Russian vote viewed by many as rigged, Voronenkov is perhaps best known for co-authoring the 2014 bill in the State Duma that banned the foreign ownership of Russian media, a move Bloomberg View columnist Leonid Bershidsky called 'perhaps the single worst thing that happened to press freedom as an institution in Putin's Russia.'"

    "Now, though, Voronenkov appears to have flipped, becoming a fiery critic of most everything he once supported in Russia and a citizen of Ukraine, to boot."

In an interview, Voronenkov told RFE that Russia "has gone crazy. People are behaving in a pseudo-patriotic frenzy."

Describing the dynamic in Russia, he and Maksakova told the news outlet that lying had become commonplace, and "the lack of professionalism has been replaced by loyalty to power."

[Source: By Bill Chappell, Oregon Public Bradcasting, 23Mar17]
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