Hot: Former Russian State Duma MP murdered in Kiev

(Baonghean.vn) -Former Russian State Duma MP Denis Voronenkov has been killed in the capital Kiev, Ukraine in a shootout at the entrance of the Premier Palace hotel.

Former State Duma MP Denis Voronenkov. Photo: TASS.

Andrew Kryschenko, head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, said the incident occurred at around 1 p.m. local time when the former State Duma deputy left the hotel with his bodyguards. In the lobby of the hotel, he was approached by an unidentified man who fired at him repeatedly. Immediately afterwards, a shootout broke out between Mr. Voronenkov's bodyguard and the unidentified attacker. Mr. Voronenkov died on the spot, while the bodyguard and the killer were injured and taken to the hospital.

Kiev's interior ministry quickly suggested that the former MP's murder could have been carried out "on order".

Yuri Lutsenkko, the representative of the Ukrainian prosecutor, said that the reason for the murder was related to a series of statements by Voronenkov about Russian political life and his readiness to testify at the Procuracy against former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

On his personal Facebook page, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko accused the murder of the former State Duma deputy of being "an act of state terrorism from Russia".

Voronenkov's wife, Maria Maksakova, a Russian opera singer, was also a former deputy of the Russian State Duma from the United Russia party and a member of the State Duma Committee on Culture (2011-2016). At the end of last year, the former MP and his wife moved to Ukraine and quickly became citizens of this country.

Denis Voronenkov once explained that the reason for his departure from Russia was political issues. But in fact, according to the Russian National Investigation Committee, Denis Voronenkov was prosecuted for fraud for appropriating a building in Moscow worth $5 million.

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(According to TASS)