KIEV, March 24. /TASS/. Ukrainian interior minister’s adviser Anton Gerashchenko has disclosed the name of the man who killed Russia’s former State Duma member Denis Voronenkov in Kiev on Thursday.
"The killing of Denis Voronenkov was committed by Ukrainian citizen Pavel Parshov, born in Sevastopol in 1988," Gerashchenko said on his Facebook.
Gerashchenko said that according to his sources "Parshov had never left Ukraine officially. In February 2015 he crossed into Belarus on foot through a border checkpoint."
Gerashchenko says that "in Russia, before returning to Ukraine he (Parshov) underwent a course of special training at a school for saboteurs created by the NKVD security police during Stalin rule."
The official confirmed that Voronenkov’s killer "served for one year in a National Guard unit but took no part in combat operations and retired of his own accord in August 2016." He said the investigators were probing into all circumstances related to the preparations for and planning of Voronenkov’s murder.
"The investigators have found out a lot over the hours since the moment of the killing," he remarked.
Denis Voronenkov was murdered in Kiev on March 23 in a brief shootout at the entrance to Premier Palace Hotel. The head of Kiev’s police Andrey Krishchenko said the incident occurred at about 13:00 Moscow time, when Voronenkov was leaving the hotel in the company of his bodyguards. At that moment the attacker approached him and fired several shots with a handgun. Voronenkov’s bodyguard returned fire. The bodyguard and the attacker were injured and taken to hospital. The killer died in hospital hours later.
In December 2014 Voronenkov was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in connection with criminal proceedings over a raider seizure of a building in central Moscow. In October 2016 Voronenkov emigrated to Ukraine. In February this year he was formally charged with fraud and put on an international wanted list.