More than six months after Russian State Duma ex-lawmaker Denys Voronenkov was gunned down on a busy street in Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities have accused Russian citizen Vladimir Tyurin of arranging the assassination at the behest of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB.
Tyurin is now in Russia, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said.
The accusations, if true, will only deepen the divide between Ukraine and Russia. While Lutsenko did not name Vladimir Putin, the Russian president is the former head of the FSB, the successor agency to the Soviet KGB, and many believe that he still controls the powerful spy and law enforcement agency.
A Kremlin supporter-turned-critic, Voronenkov was killed in Kyiv’s downtown on March 23. The gunman, Pavlo Parshov, a Ukrainian citizen, suffered fatal gunshot wounds from Voronenkov’s bodyguard and died in a hospital. Voronenkov’s lone bodyguard had been provided by the Defense Ministry, as Voronenkov was giving testimony in a criminal investigation against ex-President Viktor Yanukovych in connection with Russia’s war in eastern Ukraine.
Investigators said they had traced the timeline of the crime to track down the organizers. They identified Dmitriy Tyurin, one of Vladimir Tyurin’s sons, as the mediator between the contractor and the group that organized the killing.
The members of the group are all Ukrainians. Two of them – Yuriy Vasylenko and Yaroslav Levenets – are on the wanted list. Two other suspects – Oleksandr Los and Yaroslav Tarasenko – have been arrested. The case is soon to go to trial.
Voronenkov moved to Ukraine with his wife Maria Maksakova in the fall of 2016 because of political persecution, Lutsenko said. In January, the Russian gave testimony against Yanukovych and about the activities of the Russian army in the war against Ukraine.
According to Lutsenko, Voronenkov’s testimony provoked the FSB and Russian criminals to have Voronenkov killed to prevent him from giving further testimony in Ukrainian and international courts, Lutsenko said.
“We’re convinced that the killing of Denys Voronenkov is connected to his testimony about the presence of Russian army units on the territory of Ukraine, as well as the treason case against Yanukovych,” Lutsenko said.
Lutsenko also said Tyurin had a personal grudge against Maksakova. Before she married Voronenkov, she had been Tyurin’s common-law wife.
Lutsenko said Tyurin agreed to order and finance the assassination in exchange for the FSB turning a blind eye to his criminal groups’ activities in Russia and other former Soviet republics.
Tyurin has previous convictions for rape and theft, Lutsenko said.
Ilya Ponomarev, a Russian opposition politician and a former member of the Duma, said he thought the investigation had been a success. Speaking at Lutsenko’s press conference, Ponomarev said he had little doubt that that the FSB had been behind Tyurin’s actions.
Maksakova, Voronenkov’s wife, cooperated with the investigators as a victim. She told the Kyiv Post that she trusted the result of the investigation as well.
However, she said Tyurin had no personal interest in killing Voronenkov.
Maksakova and Voronenkov had not been in conflict with Tyurin, she said. Maksakova has two children with Tyurin, but she said she broke off all contact with him after she found out about Tyurin’s involvement in the crime.
“Tyurin was good cover to perform an order from other people who persecuted Denys,” she said. She linked Voronenkov’s killing to former FSB General Oleg Feoktistov.
According to Ponomarev, Voronenkov and Feoktistov had had a personal vendetta since the early 2000s, after the general had been implicated in a smuggling scandal investigated by Voronenkov, who at that time worked for Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service.
Ponomarev also blamed Feoktistov for ordering the assassination.
The Kyiv Post could not reach Feoktistov for comment.
Maksakova said she was shocked that Tyurin, whom she described as “scum, and a bastard,” had agreed to perform the assassination, but “it’s now obvious that his involvement has been confirmed.”
