Poroshenko: Killing was Russian "state terrorism":
By RFE/RL
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says the killing of a former Russian lawmaker in Kyiv was "an act of state terrorism" by Russia.
Poroshenko made the statement on Facebook and Twitter hours after Denis Voronenkov, who moved to Ukraine last year and had criticized the Russian government, was shot dead in central Kyiv on March 23.
The killing was an "act of state terrorism on the part of Russia, which [Voronenkov] had to leave for political reasons."
He said the killing bore the "clear hallmarks of the Russian special services."
"Voronenkov was one of the main witnesses of Russian aggression against Ukraine, and especially of [former President Viktor] Yanukovych's role as regards the entrance of Russian troops into Ukraine."
He said he believed it was "no accident" that the killing took place on the same day as blasts and a fire at a munitions depot in the Kharkiv region, which he called "sabotage."
Former Russian lawmaker shot dead in Kyiv:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
A former Russian lawmaker who defected to Ukraine in 2016 and has compared Russia with Nazi Germany has been shot dead in Kyiv, police say.
Kyiv police chief Andriy Kryshchenko told RFE/RL that he was killed in a shoot-out on a central street in the Ukrainian capital on March 23.
Denis Voronenkov, 45, was a Communist Party deputy in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, from 2011 until elections in September 2016.
Voronenkov and his wife, Maria Maksakova, also a former Russian lawmaker, left Russia for Ukraine in October 2016 after Russian investigators called for a probe into allegations he was involved in the illegal seizure of property in Moscow.
In an interview with RFE/RL in February, Voronenkov compared present-day Russia with Nazi Germany, saying that Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) controlled everything in the country.
He also called Russia's March 2014 seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region "a mistake" and said he had testified against former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted by pro-European protests in Kyiv in February 2014. (w/UNIAN, Interfax, and Republic.ru)