“Horrific murder” in Lviv (original)

Two men await their victim outside his home, whose address had been published a few hours earlier on the website Myrotvorets, linked to the Ministry of the Interior. At point-blank range and leaving no chance of survival, the victim is shot by two thugs who flee the scene. They are arrested some time later and never brought to trial. This is what happened more than eleven years ago to journalist Oles Buzina in the first of many political assassinations that have occurred in post-Maidan, post-Revolution of Dignity Ukraine. Whether committed by members of the far right, such as C14 in the Buzina case or an Azov sympathizer in the Farion case, the SBU in the Zakharchenko case, the result of the armed confrontation between the SBU and the GUR in the case of the negotiator Denis KIreev, assassinated in 2022, or attributed to Russia without any serious investigation, these cases are an example of the political instability that exists today, but also long before Russian tanks crossed the border on February 24, 2022. The latest case occurred yesterday in Lviv, the nationalist capital, a historic center of the Banderist far right and one of the furthest areas from the war.

As can be seen in the images published shortly after the crime, a man disguised as a delivery man waited patiently between two vehicles in a residential neighborhood of the city. The killer, who has not yet been arrested but for whom a search has already begun, briefly follows his victim before stopping, taking aim, and firing eight times. This is how Andriy Parubiy died yesterday, one of the political figures whose career marks the transition in Ukraine: from a Ukraine in which the nationalist far right operated on the margins and the country was located on the European periphery without much interest to the political establishment or the mainstream media, to the current state, the center of Brussels’ foreign policy. In this transition, Parubiy’s extensive experience in radical movements is overshadowed by his institutional positions over the last decade.

“Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko and Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko have just announced the first known circumstances of the horrific murder in Lviv. Andriy Parubiy was killed. My deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. All necessary forces and resources are being used in the investigation and search for the killer,” Zelensky wrote to confirm the news, which quickly sparked a torrent of reactions from the expected sectors: activists linked to Western countries and their sympathetic press, European Union institutions, and Ukrainian nationalists.

“Deeply shocked by the terrible murder of former Verkhovna Rada Speaker Andrey Parubiy in Lviv. My deepest condolences to his family and friends,” wrote Roberta Metsola, accompanying her message of condolence with a black and white photo of the politician, who was murdered on one of his several visits to the European Parliament. Despite his extensive career in the most violent far-right, European institutions opened their doors to Parubiy, allowing him to meet with heads of state and government who, through their actions, normalized the participation of groups that, until then, had been considered hate mongers. Nor was the relationship between Parubiy and the European Parliament always as idyllic as it was when he began to be received with standing ovations. Just a few years earlier, the institution was the target of the nationalist’s ire, offended by the Parliament’s criticism of the awarding of the title of Hero of Ukraine to Stepan Bandera, then described as a Nazi collaborator.

“Oh my God. Andriy Parubiy, a key figure in the Euromaidan revolution and former speaker of the Rada, has been murdered in Lviv. The killer was apparently riding an electric bicycle,” wrote Ilia Ponomarenko, a journalist sympathetic to the Azov movement and a perfect example of the kind of media figure that Maidan Ukraine has created, for whom promoting nationalist ideas is the main objective.

“It is shocking and devastating to read that Andriy Parubiy was assassinated today in Lviv. It is a tremendous loss. He was a true statesman; his initiatives were always aimed at defending Ukraine’s identity and nationhood. May he be eternally remembered,” wrote Olena Halushka, an anti-corruption activist and frequent lobbyist for institutions such as the Atlantic Council. The activist is an exponent of the social class dedicated to promoting Western-sponsored causes, which in recent years has replaced civil society organized from below and which, unlike this new militant class, does not enjoy generous subsidies from foreign institutions or media prominence that quickly becomes political. Although the confrontation between this activist technocracy subsidized by allied countries and nationalism has often been highlighted, the boundaries between them have never been watertight, especially because they have always had a common enemy: Russia and any group, organization, or individual that could be defamed as pro-Russian, a label automatically assigned to those who should be ostracized. In the shifting sands of these turbulent times, in which Ukraine experienced a coup disguised as a revolution, two massacres that have been refused investigation, and a civil war—all before the Russian invasion—Parubiy knew how to position himself in the right place at the right time, transforming himself from a figure on the fringes of the small ultranationalist social base into a respectable politician. All this without adapting his political worldview, renouncing the violent ideology that made him famous, or needing to explain why someone with his ideas and career could fit perfectly into the new political elite created in 2014 and become one of the leading politicians of the European Solidarity project, with which he accompanied Petro Poroshenko to a political downfall from which none of its figures have, to date, managed to recover.

“The assassination of Andriy Parubiy, the former speaker of Ukraine’s parliament and a fierce opponent of Russia, is the most significant in a string of high-profile killings since the war with Russia began,” wrote Financial Times correspondent Christopher Miller, pointing the finger directly at the Kremlin. “Andriy Parubiy, the former speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, was killed in Lviv, according to preliminary media reports. The National Police confirm that a well-known civic and political figure, born in 1971, was shot dead today in the city. A year ago, the Ukrainian security service informed me that Parubiy was on Russia’s list of people they wanted to kill when they launched the 22nd invasion. Could the Russians pull this off in Lviv?” added Yulia Mendel, Zelensky’s first spokeswoman upon coming to power. Blaming Russia, undoubtedly the simplest and most straightforward answer for Ukraine, has been the first reaction of much of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, which is accustomed to seeing the hand of its hated neighbor. Dismissing the crime as a mafia hit, a contract killing, or Moscow’s political revenge is convenient and, above all, helps obscure the circumstances under which such a shadowy figure as Andriy Parubiy became speaker of Parliament, the country’s second-largest political authority.

“Russia has been immediately blamed for all post-Maidan political assassinations, such as those of Pavel Sheremet or Denis Voronenkov. However, in all these cases, far-right militants linked to the Ukrainian security services emerged as suspects in police investigations,” claimed Russian opposition journalist Leonid Ragozin, to which Mark Ames responded by insisting that “Paruby knew better than most how to organize a revolution in Ukraine. The timing of Parubiy’s murder, just after the huge protests against Zelensky and the start of a UK-led campaign to promote Zaluzhny instead of Zelensky, coupled with armistice pressures, points inwards.” “This is a high-profile assassination. Parubiy began as a co-founder of the neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine, then a leader of the Maidan Self-Defense movement with its alleged false flag shootings, Speaker of the Rada, and a key liaison in pushing for Ukraine’s NATO membership.” “The godfather of the banderistas,” the American journalist summarized.

A founding member and first leader of Patriot of Ukraine, the paramilitary wing of the Social Nationalist Assembly, which in turn was the successor to the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine, Parubiy was one of the most prominent figures in that group of organizations that eventually gave rise to both Svoboda and Azov, the current Banderist far-right, and to neo-Nazi-inspired factions. Parubiy, who confirmed in an interview that his political views had not changed since his time in far-right political movements on the European continent, drew on his previous experiences to become one of the key figures during the Maidan revolution. As head of the self-defense forces , his role in the deaths that ultimately led to the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych was never clarified, but the shadow of doubt always accompanied the image of Parubiy leaving the hotel where he had set up his headquarters with heavily armed individuals. Parubiy was also one of the key figures in organizing the protest and, as The New York Times reported at the time, he attended a meeting with the then US ambassador to Ukraine, armed and hooded.

Parubiy’s life and political trajectory are a good representation of the direction Ukraine has taken in the last decade and a half. From confronting the European Parliament in defense of Stepan Bandera, then a hero to only a few, Parubiy went on to direct the process by which Maidan shock troops were equipped for urban combat and, with explicit Western support, prematurely, irregularly, and violently ended the mandate of an elected president. Reflecting the transformation of Maidan structures into the country’s security institutions, a means of infiltrating the far right into key state institutions, Parubiy was briefly appointed chairman of the National Security and Defense Council. It was then, just days before the May 2nd massacre, that he met in Odessa with nationalist activists, whom he equipped with bulletproof vests. Like the Maidan murders, those at the House of Trade Unions have not been subject to an investigation seeking to clarify the facts and punish the perpetrators.

Appointed Speaker of the Rada after the electoral victory of Petro Poroshenko, also close to the Banderist factions, Andriy Parubiy is the perfect example of why the far right doesn’t need strong electoral results from parties like Svoboda or figures like Andriy Biletsky to exert its influence and consolidate nationalist rhetoric as the official state discourse, something that began long before the Russian invasion and has only grown since then. From the platform of the country’s second-ranking authority, Parubiy had the opportunity to spread his message of hatred against the population of the east—claiming, for example, that the Soviet Union had expelled the Ukrainian population to repopulate those areas with Russians—or to defend his dream of carrying out a Krajina operation against the population of Donbass.

“Eternal memory, Andriy Volodymyrovych. You were always a patriot of Ukraine and made a great contribution to the formation of our state. My deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. This is a profound loss for the country. We must promptly clarify the circumstances of his death and punish all those responsible, ” reads Prime Minister Svyrydenko’s eulogy. From a paramilitary leader, author of a book titled “View from the Right,” signed and dedicated by Jean-Marie LePen, to Speaker of Parliament and patriotic leader, Andriy Parubiy’s life epitomizes the changes the country has undergone and the way in which a once marginal ideology has made its way into the official discourse. His end, assassinated in an internal or external settling of scores, also reflects the consequences the process has had for Ukraine.

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