Ústav mezinárodních vztahů

The shocking assassination of Russian politician-turned-pariah Denis Voronenkov last week has sharpened fears among the Russian diaspora of Moscow’s inclination toward vendetta.

Although the motivation for the killing is not yet clear, the sad irony is that Moscow’s geopolitical status means that, not only will it be blamed for any such incident, it will also perversely benefit from them.

A Communist Party deputy who voted for the Crimean annexation before fleeing to Kiev in 2016 and receiving fast-track Ukrainian citizenship, Voronenkov was undoubtedly a hated figure in certain Moscow circles. Much like criminals, spies, zealots and revolutionaries, today’s masters of the Kremlin regard traitors as even worse than regular enemies. In Dante’s Inferno, virtuous pagans face limbo, but heretics are trapped in flaming coffins. In Putin’s Inferno, apostates may face the bullet, the bomb, or the isotope instead, but the spirit of it is much the same.

Despite Kiev’s quick (and predictable) attribution of blame, the style of the hit – amateurish, without back-up – does not immediately suggest a Russian security services operation. A single gunman with an ageing (and jam-prone) Tokarev pistol taking on a target with an armed bodyguard on a busy daytime street does not seem professional. Besides, the risk that he would be caught alive was considerable.

Of course, the Kremlin’s fingerprints could still be on the trigger. The Russians certainly seem to have had the best motive to want Voronenkov dead, and might have had to use whomever they could find. However, at this stage, we cannot rule out the possibility that it was a personal enemy, someone who feared what Voronenkov knew, or someone with a less predictable motive.

On another level, the motivation and the “client” matter significantly less than why people think the murder was ordered and who they believe was behind it...

You can read the full article in The Moscow Times.

Dr Mark Galeotti is the IIR Senior Researcher, the Co-ordinator of the Centre for European Security of the IIR as well as an internationally recognized expert on transnational organized crime, security issues and modern Russia.