Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced that a suspect has been arrested in the murder of former parliamentary speaker Andriy Parubiy, who was killed in an attack over the weekend.
In a post on Telegram early on Monday, Zelenskyy wrote that the suspect had given an “initial testimony” and “urgent investigative actions are currently underway to establish all the circumstances of this murder”.
“I thank law enforcement for their swift and coordinated work. All the circumstances of this horrific murder must be uncovered,” he said.
On Saturday, Parubiy, 54, who served as speaker from April 2016 to August 2019, was shot dead in the western city of Lviv. He was one of the protest leaders in 2013-14, calling for closer ties with the European Union.
Internal Affairs Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote on Telegram on Sunday night that dozens of police officers and security officers had been involved in the operation to arrest the suspect in the Khmelnytsky region of western Ukraine.
According to Klymenko, the crime was “carefully prepared: the schedule of the deceased’s movements was studied, the route was laid, and an escape plan was thought out”.
Some tributes from Ukrainian officials to Parubiy hinted at suspicions of Russian involvement in the killing. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, both sides have accused each other of assassinations of key political and military leaders.
According to the Russian state media, Parubiy had been wanted by Russian authorities since 2023.
As a young man, he had campaigned for Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union. He was also a key supporter of promoting the use of Ukrainian over the Russian language – a highly politicised issue.
During the 2014 Maidan protests, following then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to cancel a planned association agreement with the EU due to intense pressure from Moscow, Parubiy was the “commander” of the opposition’s self-defence forces.
The same year, he had survived an assassination attempt by a grenade, media reports said.
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