A UKRAINIAN MP was found dead in his office on Saturday with a gun nearby, police said yesterday.

Interior Ministry official Zoryan Shkiryak said a preliminary investigation suggests that Valeriy Davydenko, who used to be part of ex-president Petro Poroshenko’s party but ran at the last election as an independent, killed himself.

But the death has prompted suspicion as it evokes a string of supposed suicides by MPs and officials linked to the Viktor Yanukovych government after it was overthrown in a coup backed by the US and EU in 2014. 

Victims included Party of the Regions former vice-chair Mykhaylo Chechetov, who allegedly leapt from a window, Melitopol mayor Serhiy Walter, Kharkiv regional government chief Oleksiy Kolesnyk, railway chief Mykola Serhiyenko, Zaporizhzhya governor Oleksandr Peklushenko and MPs such as Oleg Kalashnikov and Stanislav Melnyk. At the time, the now-disbanded Party of Regions accused the new authorities of conducting “political reprisals” and using “terror.”