Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a suspect has been apprehended in the killing of Andriy Parubiy, a nationalist lawmaker and former parliament speaker, who was gunned down on a street in the western city of Lviv.
Few details were immediately available following Zelenskyy’s August 31 announcement shortly before midnight.
“Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko and head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Maliuk have just reported the apprehension of a suspect in the murder of Andriy Parubiy,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
“The necessary investigative actions are ongoing. I have instructed that the available information be presented to the public. I thank our law enforcement officers for their prompt and coordinated work.”
“All the circumstances of this terrible murder must be made clear,” he added.
Parubiy was shot dead around noon on August 30 on Yefremova Street, near his residence, according to a correspondent from RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service at the scene. Law enforcement confirmed that the former lawmaker died instantly from his injuries.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General’s Office announced that a murder investigation had been launched and that the attacker was being sought for the “intentional homicide” of the well-known 54-year-old politician.
As law enforcement authorities sought to identify and apprehend the attacker and searched for clues to a possible motive in the shooting, several associates of Parubiy blamed Russia.
Lawmaker Mykola Knyazhytskiy said he believed Parubiy’s killing was “Russian revenge for his stance,” suggesting he was targeted for his support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, security, and unity in the face of the Russian invasion.
Parubiy played a prominent role in the Maidan protests of 2013-14, known in Ukraine as the Revolution of Dignity, when huge rallies over then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to distance Kyiv from the European Union and move closer to Russia instead led to the collapse of his rule and his flight to Russia.
Parubiy was also an important figure in the Orange Revolution, when the declared victory of Yanukovych, the Kremlin favorite in a 2004 presidential election, was overturned following massive protests over evidence of widespread fraud.
“Whoever carried it out, the one who ordered it and the one who must bear responsibility is Putin,” former President Petro Poroshenko, who heads the European Solidarity party, of which Parubiy was a member, said of his killing.
