Andriy Parubiy was shot several times with a short-barreled firearm yesterday, police said, adding that the perpetrator, who fled the scene and has not yet been identified, was “thoroughly prepared”.
Parubiy, who was a current MP and previously the chair of Ukraine’s parliament, died before medical personnel arrived on the scene, according to Maksym Kozitskiy, head of the Lviv region military administration.
He was also a prominent figure in the Maidan Revolution, a movement which began in November 2013 after then-President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign a trade pact with the European Union that had been years in the making, opting instead for closer ties with neighbouring Russia.
During the revolution, which lasted three months, Parubiy was the head of an enormous tent city established by thousands of protesters in Kyiv’s central Independence Square, known as the Maidan.
He was later the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council during 2014.
In 2019, Parubiy signed a bill to make the use of the Ukrainian language mandatory in certain public sectors, calling it a “historic day”.
Ukrainian member of parliament Iryna Gerashchenko called Parubiy’s killing “terrorism,” describing him as a “colleague and friend, a reliable comrade” who “was principled and decent, patriotic, intelligent”.
Petro Poroshenko, a former Ukrainian president, said that Parubiy was “shot dead by monsters in Lviv.”
“What can be said for certain is that these monsters are afraid, and that is why they kill true patriots and strong people,” he wrote on social media.
“This crime is not just shots fired at a person. It is a shot at the army. It is a shot at the language. It is a shot at faith. It is a shot at the heart of Ukraine.”
