Shaun Walker at the Guardian reports that Denis Voronenkov, a former Russian MP who was critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and fled to Ukraine, has been fatally shot by an unidentified gunman in Kiev.
My condolences to his family and friends, in particular his wife Maria Maksakova, who is also a former MP.
Voronenkov, 45, who had given "a number of interviews after his defection that were sharply critical of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and Kremlin policy in Ukraine," was on his way to meet another former Russian MP who had also fled, Ilya Ponomarev, when he was killed.
Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko, summoned the head of the security services to brief him on the killing. He later released a statement calling the attack an "act of Russian state terrorism."Emphasis mine.
"Voronenkov was one of the main witnesses of the Russian aggression against Ukraine and, in particular, the role of Yanukovich regarding the deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine," he said.
That would be Viktor Yanukovych, who featured prominently in my lengthy piece yesterday about 2016 election ties to Russia and Ukraine.
One of the main witnesses who was to testify against an ousted pro-Putin Ukrainian leader, for whom Donald Trump's campaign chief Paul Manafort and Bernie Sanders' chief strategist Tad Devine both worked, has been murdered in the street.
Presumably on the orders of Putin, whose habit of killing his political opponents the U.S. president shrugged off by saying: "There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers. Well, you think our country is so innocent?"
[H/T to Eastsidekate.]
Shakesville is run as a safe space. First-time commenters: Please read Shakesville's Commenting Policy and Feminism 101 Section before commenting. We also do lots of in-thread moderation, so we ask that everyone read the entirety of any thread before commenting, to ensure compliance with any in-thread moderation. Thank you.
blog comments powered by Disqus