An unidentified man fatally wounded controversial former Ukrainian lawmaker Iryna Farion on Friday night, Ukrainian media reported.
Marta Oliyarnyk, a journalist for the Ukrainian TV channel Espresso, said the shot was fired in the temple, after which Farion was taken away by an ambulance.
According to Ukrainian media, the woman was taken to a hospital in critical condition. Doctors said that the former MP underwent a primary head surgery, she was connected to an artificial lung ventilation machine. Later in the press service of the First medical association of Lviv reported the death of the politician. Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi said:
Tragic news: despite all efforts by medical staff, Iryna Farion’s life could not be saved.
The scene of former MP’s murder
Ukrainian media reported that the shooting took place on Masaryk Street in Lviv, where the former Rada MP lived. One of Farion’s neighbours said that for two to three weeks, a guy had been sitting in the courtyard of the house from morning to evening and watching the entrance of the former Rada deputy.
According to Ukrainian media, Farion was shot by a young man aged 20-25. A neighbour said the alleged suspect was “dressed strangely and was constantly looking at the entrance where she lives.” He was allegedly seen in a long sweater, dark glasses and wearing a hat.
After the murder, the attacker fled the scene in lightning speed. The police in Lviv said that they are conducting an operation to detain the attacker. The head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, Ihor Klymenko, said that the attack on Farion was qualified as attempted premeditated murder. The Prosecutor-General’s office said that it had launched a pre-trial investigation into the incident.
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that all necessary forces of the National police and the security service of Ukraine are involved to establish the circumstances of the attempt on the ex-MP. Zelensky wrote in his Telegram channel:
Any violence must be condemned and whoever is guilty of this attack must bear full responsibility.
Investigation’s preliminary versions
Klymenko on Saturday named several main versions of the murder of former member of the Verkhovna Rada Iryna Farion. He also wrote in his Telegram-channel. :
The main versions that are being considered at the moment: personal animosity, social and political activity of Mrs Farion. We do not exclude that the murder is of a contractual nature. The police together with employees of the SBU are carrying out a set of measures to find the shooter.
The investigation involves almost all the forces of the Lviv police, as well as part of the units of the Lviv region, a ballistic examination has been appointed in the case, as well as analysed video from surveillance cameras.
Investigators admit a “Russian trail” in Farion’s murder. Klymenko also added that nothing is known about the killer yet, “we are trying to establish his identity.” The only thing we can confirm so far is that the killer was in the same city as Farion for several days and was in front of her house at the time of the murder, the interior minister said.
Conflict with Ukrainian “Azov”
Farion got into a scandal with the fighters of the battalion “Azov” in November. On the air of the Ukrainian Channel 5, Iryna Farion said that the AFU servicemen were obliged to speak only in Ukrainian, otherwise they were not Ukrainians and should call themselves Russians. She also suggested that Russian-speaking “Azov” soldiers should move to Siberia. Afterwards, ex-Azov commander Maksym Zhorin told Faryon in his Telegram channel that she had “no right to open her mouth in the direction of Azov fighters, the Third Assault [Brigade] or any other unit of the Ukrainian army.”
The former Rada deputy asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, AFU Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, as well as the country’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov to take action against Zhorin because, according to her, he humiliates the honour of a Ukrainian officer and casts a shadow over the entire Ukrainian army.
The former Azov commander wrote a letter to Iryna Farion on November 15, where he urged her to stop PR on his name and the name of all Azov residents.
On the same day, students at the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Lviv Polytechnic National University, where Faryon was an associate professor of the Ukrainian language department, demanded her dismissal. The university said that it was not responsible for the statements made by employees and students outside the university.
The SBU opened a criminal case against her under four articles, including insulting the honour and dignity of a serviceman and threatening a serviceman. After that, Ukrainian Education Minister Oksen Lisovyi said that Faryon was fired from her position as a professor. Despite this, the former Rada deputy did not stop speaking negatively about Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine. She called her native Lviv a “city of saboteurs” because there are too many of those who speak Russian in it.
Last December, she appealed against her dismissal, but the court rejected it. The former Rada deputy then filed an appeal, and in May this year she was reinstated as a professor.
What was Irina Faryon famous for
Iryna Faryon was a doctor of philological sciences, professor of the Ukrainian language department of Lviv Polytechnic University. She was a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the head of the subcommittee on higher education of the Committee on Science and Education in 2012-2014.
Faryon is primarily known for her odious and rather harsh statements about Russia, Russians and the Russian language. She has repeatedly opposed the use of the Russian language in Ukraine. Thus, in 2019, she demanded the arrest of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for addressing voters in Russian instead of Ukrainian. In October 2023, Faryon also called for the “utilisation” of Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens.
