Fears of Russian hit campaign grow as another nationalist politician is murdered in Ukraine
Andriy Parubiy among the protesters rally in front of the Prosecutor General’s Office in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 14, 2014. (Emeric Fohlen/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The Aug. 30 murder of ex-Speaker and current lawmaker Andriy Parubiy was the latest in a string of killings and assassination attempts targeting Ukrainian nationalists and activists of pro-Western revolutions.
While the perpetrators of the attacks have been detained, the question of who ordered the assassinations remains unsolved. Evidence has been mounting that Russia could be behind at least some of the attacks.
Kremlin propaganda has consistently demonized Ukrainian nationalists and pro-European politicians.
Russia has also announced that one of its war aims was the "de-Nazification" of Ukraine — Kremlin lingo for eliminating individuals and parties that support Ukraine's sovereignty and its pro-European path.
"Ukraine's national elite has always been a prime target for Moscow," former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told the Kyiv Independent. "Today, as Russia wages a war of annihilation against our state, this campaign is more ruthless than ever."
The police and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) did not respond to requests for comment.
The murder
The police said that Parubiy was shot eight times with a short-barreled firearm in Lviv, a regional capital in western Ukraine.
A 52-year-old resident of Lviv was soon arrested in Khmelnytskyi Oblast and charged with the murder.
Ivan Vyhivskyi, Ukraine's police chief, noted that the attacker tried to hide in the western region after "he tried to cover his tracks" by changing clothes and disposing of the weapon.
Police officials said that the crime had been planned for more than a month and that the attacker had received instruction and assistance. The suspect planned to flee abroad after the crime, according to the police.
A revolutionary
Parubiy was a member of the Lviv city council and Lviv Oblast's regional legislature in the 1990s and 2000s, as well as a member of Ukraine's parliament from 2007 to 2025.
He represented many pro-European and nationalist parties. These include the nationalist Svoboda party, ex-President Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine, Yatsenyuk's People's Front, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna, and former President Petro Poroshenko's European Solidarity.
Parubiy was one of the leaders of the pro-Western 2004 Orange Revolution and was in charge of the Ukrainian House, a key building occupied by the protesters in Kyiv.
"My friend Andriy Parubiy was assassinated by a Kremlin-sent hitman."
He also gained prominence during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, which ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. He was the leader of EuroMaidan self-defense, an organization responsible for the protesters' security.
After Yanukovych was ousted, Parubiy served briefly as secretary of the National Defense and Security Council in 2014 and speaker of the Ukrainian parliament from 2016 to 2019.
Why was he targeted?
The Prosecutor General's Office said on Sept. 1 that three versions of the murder were being considered: that he was killed by Russia, due to his political activities, or as a result of a personal conflict.
Vyhivskyi, Ukraine's police chief, said on Sept. 1 that the crime was "not random" and had "a Russian trace."
The suspect confessed to murdering Parubiy and said that he had contacted representatives of Russia. He said that he had got in touch with the Russians while trying to locate his son, a Ukrainian soldier who had gone missing.
"I admit, I killed him," the suspect told journalists on Sept. 2. "And I want to ask to be exchanged for (Ukrainian) prisoners of war so that I can go and find my son's body."
Russian trace version
Volodymyr Aryev, a lawmaker from the opposition European Solidarity party, told the Kyiv Independent that the fact that the suspect wants to be exchanged "is a clear indication that there is a Russian trace."
"That Russia had a hand in this — I have no doubt at all," Aryev said. "The only question is what form it took."
He said, however, that there are some logical inconsistencies in the version being presented by the authorities, and it doesn't fully convince him.
Yatsenyuk also believes the murder was ordered by Russia.
"My friend Andriy Parubiy was assassinated by a Kremlin-sent hitman," Yatsenyuk told the Kyiv Independent.
He added that "on the eve of the full-scale invasion, the Kremlin published so-called 'sanctions lists' of Ukrainian public figures."
"At the time, many of us treated them with sarcasm," Yatsenyuk continued. "But we understood clearly: these were not sanctions lists — they were kill lists. Their purpose was to eliminate those capable of leading the nation in its fight for independence and freedom."
Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, former head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), also said in a Sept. 2 interview with the Ukrainian news outlet NV that Parubiy had been on Russia's hit lists.
Boryslav Bereza, who was the nationalist Right Sector group's spokesman during the EuroMaidan Revolution, told the Kyiv Independent that at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, SBU officials had shown him an alleged hit list compiled by Russian intelligence agencies, and Parubiy was in the top 10.
"Parubiy is a symbol of the Maidan," Bereza, who was also a member of parliament from 2014 to 2019, said in a reference to the EuroMaidan Revolution. "For Russians, he was an overt irritant."
Murders of patriotic Ukrainians also aim to destabilize the country and provoke turmoil, Bereza continued.
The Kremlin is also interested in spreading conspiracy theories blaming the Ukrainian authorities for the murder, he added.
"There have already been assassination attempts on Andriy in the past, and they were mostly orchestrated by representatives of Russian security services."
Some commentators have wondered why Parubiy was targeted despite having played no prominent role in Ukrainian politics since 2019.
Bereza argued that Parubuy was killed because he had no security guards and was an easy target.
Despite keeping a low profile, Parubiy kept his reputation and influence, with some volunteer soldiers still addressing him as "commander" in recent years in a reference to his leadership role during the EuroMaidan Revolution, Bereza added.
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, a lawmaker from the opposition Holos party, said that he "doesn't see any logic in alternative explanations" other than the Russian trace.
"There have already been assassination attempts on Andriy in the past, and they were mostly orchestrated by representatives of Russian security services," he told the Kyiv Independent. "The last information from the Security Service about a possible hunt for Andriy was back in 2022."
He believes that Russia's goal was "revenge."
"They could never forgive him for creating the Maidan self-defense forces, nor for persuading the Ukrainian political elite to provide weapons to volunteer soldiers who broke the spine of the so-called Russian spring (in 2014)," Yurchyshyn said, adding that Russia was also unhappy with Parubiy's support for a law protecting the Ukrainian language and the Ukrainian church's independence from Russia.
"Russia never forgives (people like Yevhen) Konovalets and (Stepan) Bandera because these key figures of Ukraine's liberation struggle were targeted even when they no longer had actual influence and were mostly living in exile, simply for the sake of revenge."
Yevhen Konovalets and Stepan Bandera were killed by Soviet intelligence agents in 1938 and 1959, respectively.
Attacks on Sternenko
Parubiy was not the only Ukrainian nationalist targeted in recent years.
Serhiy Sternenko, a prominent activist, survived an assassination attempt in May.
A woman was arrested following the assassination attempt. She had allegedly received money from Russian intelligence agencies, Ukrainska Pravda reported then, citing a law enforcement source.
It was not the first attack on the activist. In 2018, Sternenko had been assaulted three times.
During the third incident, he killed the attacker by stabbing him with a knife. Sternenko was later prosecuted for killing the attacker, but the case was closed in 2023.
Sternenko believes Russian intelligence agencies were behind the assassination attempts on him.
"I assume that they don't like my volunteer activities and information campaign," he told the Kyiv Independent in reference to his volunteer work for the Ukrainian army and his YouTube channel devoted to debunking Russian propaganda.
Sternenko said that "Russia has historically used terror against Ukrainians" and mentioned the murders of Ukrainian nationalist leaders Roman Shukhevych in 1950 and Bandera in 1959 by Soviet intelligence agencies.
"The Russians' goal is to terrorize the civil population as much as possible and create an atmosphere of fear," he said. "They seek to kill those who unite people around them and support an independent Ukrainian state."
Hanul's murder
Another nationalist, Demyan Hanul, was shot dead in central Odesa in March.
Hanul was a well-known public figure, blogger, and founder of the Street Front NGO. In 2014, he participated in the EuroMaidan Revolution and the May 2 clashes against pro-Russian forces in Odesa.
He had been active in rallies supporting Ukraine, charity fundraisers for the military, and campaigned to dismantle Russian and Soviet monuments.
A 46-year-old Ukrainian soldier was arrested for the murder.
The police said it was considering three versions: a Russian trace, Hanul's political and public activities, and a personal conflict.
Assassination of Farion
Hanul's murder was preceded by that of Iryna Farion, who was shot dead in Lviv in July 2024.
Farion was a highly controversial figure in Ukraine, known for her incendiary statements on the use of the Russian language. She was a linguistics professor who briefly served in the parliament with the Svoboda party from 2012 to 2014.
Farion caused particular outrage in 2023 when she said that she couldn't call Ukrainian soldiers Ukrainians if they spoke Russian.
The investigators said they were considering two versions: either Farion was killed due to her political activities or due to a personal conflict.
A teenager was arrested on charges of murdering Farion, and Ukrainian law enforcement agencies said he could be involved in a Russian neo-Nazi group.
The Russian neo-Nazi group NS/WP (National Socialism/White Power) took responsibility for Farion's murder on its Telegram channel.
The group has portrayed itself as anti-Kremlin, but Russian intelligence agencies have reportedly infiltrated many Russian nationalist groups, including ostensibly anti-government ones.
NS/WP had previously called for burning military enlistment offices in Russia.
In 2022, the Russian authorities also arrested members of NS/WP on charges of preparing an assassination attempt on the pro-Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov.
"I really do observe a systematic trend aimed at destroying those who promote Ukrainian identity: here we see Hanul from Odesa, Iryna Farion, the assassination attempts on Serhiy Sternenko, and the murder of Andriy Parubiy," Yurchyshyn said.
Yatsenyuk also sees a broader trend.
"It is part of Russia's broader war against Ukraine — an attempt to decapitate our leadership, weaken our resolve, and force us into accepting Moscow's humiliating terms for peace," he said.
