Interfax: SBU cannot yet confirm ex-Duma deputy Voronenkov’s killer was FSB agent

KYIV. March 30 (Interfax) – The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is continuing to investigate whether Pavlo Parshov, who killed former Russian State Duma deputy Denis Voronenkov, was an agent of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

“This has not yet been proven in the case of Parshov. We are now working [to establish] whether he really was an FSB agent or not. There is no such information. All of us have read it in Facebook posts and in other reports,” SBU national statehood protection department head Viktor Kononenko said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.

When asked what Ukrainian parliamentarian Anton Herashchenko based his relevant assertion upon, Kononenko suggested that “this question should be referred to Anton Herashchenko himself.”

SBU chief of staff Oleksandr Tkachuk, who was asked why the special service failed to prevent Voronenkov’s murder, said that Voronenkov was a witness in an investigation conducted by the Prosecutor General’s Office, and a decision on applying protection measures to a participant in a criminal inquiry rests with the official in charge of this investigation.

Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada deputy and Interior Minister’s advisor Anton Herashchenko (Popular Front) claimed on March 24 that Voronenkov’s killer was an agent of Russian security services embedded in Ukrainian law enforcement agencies. Herashchenko said Voronenkov’s killer was Ukrainian citizen Pavlo Parshov, who had received special training at a school for saboteurs in Russia.