‘This crime was not random’ Prominent Ukrainian politician Andriy Parubiy’s murder was months in the making. Here’s what we know about the assassination and the suspect.
On August 29, an assassin fired eight bullets at Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Parubiy in Lviv, killing him instantly. Parubiy, the former speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, had long been a target of Russian propaganda, and Ukrainian officials have already begun pointing to Moscow as the likely orchestrator of the killing. Here’s what we know so far about how Parubiy was assassinated in broad daylight.
Ukrainian police have arrested a suspect in the murder of former Verkhovna Rada Speaker Andriy Parubiy, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced early Monday. The arrest took place around midnight in the Khmelnytskyi region, according to the Interior Ministry. Investigators say the suspect may have been attempting to flee the country. Zelensky added that the suspect, whose identity has not been disclosed, has provided his first testimony. Police released photos taken during the arrest: in one, the suspect’s face is blurred, while another shows him with his back to the camera.
According to investigators, the suspect is a 52-year-old resident of Lviv with no documented employment. Investigators said he acted under “certain circumstances” that led him to commit the murder. Authorities also said it is currently unknown whether the suspect had any accomplices.
Ukraine’s Channel Five TV network, citing sources, reported that Russian intelligence services had spent a year blackmailing the suspect with information about the whereabouts of his son, who has been deemed missing in action.
Law enforcement sources told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the suspect admitted during questioning that he contacted Russian representatives while trying to locate his son, a Ukrainian army soldier who went missing near the Bakhmut front. During his communication with a Russian official, the suspect also revealed that he lived in Lviv and often saw Parubiy, and then began preparing to kill the deputy.
Ivan Vyhivskyi, head of Ukraine’s National Police, also said Russia was involved in the murder. “We know this crime was not random. There is a Russian connection. Everyone involved will answer to the law,” he said, without providing further details. Other officials noted that while Russia’s involvement is the main working theory, investigators are not ruling out other possibilities. The killing is being investigated on charges of murder and illegal handling of weapons.
Parubiy, 54, was killed in Lviv on August 30. The suspect, dressed as a delivery driver, fired eight times at the politician and checked whether he was dead before fleeing the scene. Police said he then changed clothes, disposed of the weapon, and left the city. Investigators and police identified the suspect within 24 hours, and the arrest was made 36 hours after the attack, the Interior Ministry said.
According to Ukrainian officials, Parubiy’s murder was carefully planned over several months. “The perpetrator studied the victim’s movement schedule, mapped out a route, and prepared an escape plan,” the Ukrainian Security Service said. Investigators believe the attacker received instructions while preparing for the killing. Verkhovna Rada member Artem Dmytruk claims that two months before his murder, Parubiy requested state security protection, but was denied. However, law enforcement officials said at a press briefing that neither Parubiy nor his relatives had contacted the police or the Security Service requesting protection.
Parubiy was a four-term member of parliament, serving since 2007, and was speaker of the Verkhovna Rada from 2016 to 2019. During the Soviet era, he participated in the national liberation movement and was detained for attending protests. In 1991, he co-founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine (later Svoboda). He took part in the Orange Revolution in 2004 and, during the Euromaidan Revolution in 2013–2014, served as commandant of the tent camp and led units of Maidan Self-Defense. From February to August 2014, he was secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC).
Russian state media has alleged that Parubiy “directed snipers” who shot participants in the clashes in Kyiv in February 2014, and that he “personally oversaw and organized” the fire at the Trade Unions House in Odesa in May of the same year. In 2023, the Russian Investigative Committee charged Parubiy in absentia with being responsible, as former secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, for mass shelling in the Donbas region beginning in 2014.
Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine’s occupied regions have claimed that Kyiv is behind Parubiy’s killing. Vladimir Saldo, the Moscow-backed “head” of the occupied Kherson region, said the murder “shows how the Ukrainian political system is rotting from within.” Vladimir Rogov, head of the Russian Civic Chamber’s “commission on sovereignty,” claimed it “is the result of internal power struggles and a cleanup of those who knew too much about the crimes in Odesa and Donbas.” Rodion Miroshnik, a Russian Foreign Ministry special envoy, said that “the new Banderites are clearing the ‘political field’ of the old Banderites in anticipation of hypothetical elections.”
Mikhail Sheremt, a Russian State Duma deputy from annexed Crimea, claimed that Parubiy “was often called an executioner” and said that “now the boomerang of death he set in motion has returned to him.” Boris Litvinov, a deputy of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, likened the killing to that of “one of Hitler’s henchmen.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova suggested the murder could be attributed to the group of Ukrainian divers suspected of attacking the Nord Stream pipeline, “one of whom made his way from Italy to the port of Odesa through a prison sewer.”