Ukrainian politician Andriy Parubiy has been shot dead in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, officials said Saturday. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on social media that authorities are still searching for the killer. Zelenskyy also called it a “horrendous murder” and offered condolences to the victim’s loved ones.
The Prosecutor General’s office said 54-year-old Parubiy was killed instantly when an attacker fired several shots at him around noon before fleeing the scene, Reuters reported. Police and security services launched a manhunt and cordoned off parts of the city.
Who was Andriy Parubiy?
A sitting member of parliament, Parubiy served as parliamentary speaker from April 2016 to August 2019. Earlier, he also served as secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council during the pivotal months of 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and war broke out in the eastern Donbas region. Parubiy was also a leading figure in the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests, which demanded closer ties with the European Union and ultimately toppled the Moscow-backed government of Viktor Yanukovych.
According to Reuters’ report, authorities did not immediately clarify whether the shooting was linked to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi in a Telegram post said establishing the circumstances of the attack was of “utmost importance”. “This is a matter of security in a country at war, where, as we can see, there are no completely safe places,” he wrote on Telegram.
Tributes pour in for Parubiy
Tributes poured in from across the political spectrum. Former president Petro Poroshenko described the assassination as “a shot fired at the heart of Ukraine”, calling Parubiy “a great man and a true friend” who had helped shape the country’s defense institutions. Lawmakers praised his decades-long role in defending Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence, Reuters reported.
National police appealed to the public for information as the search for the gunman continued late Saturday.