Russian Defector's Murder Sends a Chilling Message

Denis Voronenkov, a former Russian legislator, was shot dead in broad daylight in downtown Kiev on Thursday. This is almost certainly a political murder ordered by the Kremlin in the long-standing KGB tradition of executing traitors -- and a chilling statement of intent from Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Ukrainian government.

Ever since Ukraine's 2014 anti-corruption revolution, crime has been on the rise in Kiev. In January 2017, 15 people were murdered in the Ukrainian capital, compared with 6 in the prior January. Voronenkov, however, was no average victim. Last fall, he became exposed to criminal charges of illegally seizing a Moscow building after his term in the Russian parliament expired. With his wife, also a former Russian legislator as well as a well-known opera singer, he fled to Ukraine, where Voronenkov promptly received citizenship -- a rare feat in Ukraine -- presumably because the government saw him as a star witness in a high-profile investigation of former President Viktor Yanukovych.