The following month, Voronenkov renounced his Russian citizenship and emigrated to Ukraine with his wife, Maria Maksakova Jr.

Ukrainian prosecutors believe that it had been a contract killing (arranged by an FSB officer) while the country's then-president, Petro Poroshenko, alleged that it had been orchestrated by the Russian government.

Denis Nikolayevich Voronenkov was born in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod), Russian SFSR, but had a Ukrainian grandmother and (according to his widow) spent his childhood in Ukraine's Kherson Oblast.

[1] The Ukrainian journalist Kostyantyn Doroshenko published the book «Aria of Mary» a biography of Maria Maksakova and her life with Voronenkov (2021).

[8] [9] As the son of a serviceman, Voronenkov won a place in the Leningrad Suvorov Military School, from which he graduated in 1988 and then immediately joined the Soviet Army.

[1][11][b] He then pursued an academic career as an associate professor; his last post before being elected an MP was (from February 2010) at the St. Petersburg Institute of International Trade, Economics and Law.

[3][7] Voronenkov lost his bid for reelection in September 2016, taking third place (13.99%) in constituency No.129, located in his native Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, well behind the winner, United Russia candidate Vladimir Panov (42.39%).

[7] In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in February 2017, Voronenkov compared Russia under Vladimir Putin to Nazi Germany and called the Russian annexation of Crimea both illegal and a mistake.

[4] In October 2016 the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office refused to launch a probe against Voronenkov recommended by the Investigative Committee of Russia.

[19][10] Voronenkov has been accused by Alexey Navalny and the Anti-Corruption Foundation of using ill-gotten wealth to buy extensive property and automotive holdings worth hundreds of millions of rubles.

[11][3][22] Ukraine's General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko stated that Voronenkov was shot at least three times, including in the head, and died instantly.

[17] The gunman carried a Ukrainian passport and had been sought by the police on fraud and money laundering charges, according to the General Prosecutor of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov denied being involved and called the claims "absurd".

"[26] A little more than a month before his murder, Voronenkov said that he feared for his own and his family's security, and that he had been "poking a sore spot of the Kremlin" with his criticism of the Russian president.

"[27] In 2019 The New York Times Magazine reported that Voronenkov's death was likely to have been related to him benefiting on his co-conspirators in a case of corporate raiding.

[28][29] The same month Ukrainian MIA placed on its wanted list Parshov's suspected co-conspirator Yaroslav Levenets (Ukrainian: Ярослав Левенец) who previously served as militant (under the Hunter pseudonym) in the far-right nationalist Right-Sector group and who fought in War in Donbass and had history of arrests for various crimes in the past.

[30] In September 2017 Ukrainian prosecutor's office announced that Vladimir Tyurin [ru] (a thief in law who was in relationship with Maria Maksakova Jr. before she married Voronenkov) was hired by Oleg Feoktistov (Russian: Олег Феоктистов), a Russian FSB officer, to organize the assassination of Voronenkov.