UKRAINE’S coup regime accused Moscow of the killing of a former Russian Communist MP in Kiev yesterday.

Denis Voronenkov, who testified to Ukrainian investigators and criticised Russian policies after he moved to Kiev last autumn, was shot dead by an unidentified gunman near the entrance of the exclusive Premier Palace hotel.

Mr Voronenkov’s bodyguard, a Ukrainian security services officer, returned fire and was wounded.

Both he and the assassin were hospitalised, but Ukrainian officials said the gunman — identified as a Ukrainian citizen — later died from wounds to his chest and head.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the shooting an “act of state terrorism” that “clearly shows the handwriting of Russian special services shown repeatedly in various European capitals in the past.”

He said Mr Voronenkov was a key witness who gave testimony about “Russian aggression” to the Ukrainian authorities.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the allegation as “absurd.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went further, saying the “killer regime” in Kiev “will do its best to make sure that no-one will ever know the truth about what happened.”

And Russian Communist Part leader Gennady Zyuganov said Ukrainian secret services and even the CIA could be involved.

Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko said Mr Voronenkov was killed shortly before a meeting with fellow former Russian MP Ilya Ponomaryov.

Both men had been due to give testimony later in the day at the Ukrainian Military Prosecutor’s Office. The purpose of the testimony was not immediately clear.

Mr Poroshenko said it was no coincidence that Mr Voronenkov was killed on the day that a fire erupted at a Ukrainian military arsenal in the Kharkov region.

Around 20,000 residents had to be evacuated and a 25-mile area was closed to flights as some 138,000 tons of ordnance was set ablaze.

Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak suggested that the fire was likely to have been started by Russian or Donbass anti-fascist saboteurs, probably using a drone.

The neighbouring self-proclaimed Lugansk and Donetsk republics rejected those claims, saying the true cause was probably corruption or incompetence in Ukraine’s ineffectual armed forces.