A former Russian lawmaker and critic of President Vladimir Putin was shot dead outside his hotel in Kiev on Thursday. Denis Voronenkov had fled Russia in October 2016 about speaking out against the Russian government’s policies. Ukraine has blamed Russia for the murder, which they termed “state terrorism”, reported NPR. Voronenkov was granted citizenship by Ukraine.

Investigators said he was shot three to four times in his head and neck outside Premier Palace hotel. He died on the spot. The assassin was injured in a gun battle with Voronenkov’s bodyguard and later died in hospital.

“He told me he was receiving threats from the FSB [Russia’s federal security service],” Ilya Ponomarev, a former MP who has also fled Russia, told The Guardian. “To be honest, I had thought he was being a bit paranoid.” Voronenkov was to depose against Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovych, who had fled to Russia after the Maidan revolution in 2014.

After the killing, Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko said Voronenkov was one of the “main witnesses of the Russian aggression against Ukraine and, in particular, the role of Yanukovych regarding the deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine”. Voronenkov had criticised Russia’s decision to annex Crimea and support the uprising in east Ukrain. Though he had voted in favour of the annexation, he had later said that he had done so because of political pressure.

Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed the allegations in connection with the murder. Foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the “killer regime” in Kiev “will do its best to make sure that no one will ever know the truth about what happened”.

“I believe that whatever will happen will happen. I don’t intend to hide,” Voronenkov had said in a recent interview. “It’s hard to imagine we will be forgiven.”