Ukraine arrests suspect in former parliamentary speaker’s murder

A connection from the country’s interior curate suggests that Saturday’s sidesplitting had been cautiously planned.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced that a fishy has been arrested successful the execution of erstwhile parliamentary talker Andriy Parubiy, who was killed successful an onslaught implicit the weekend.

In a station connected Telegram aboriginal connected Monday, Zelenskyy wrote that the fishy had fixed an “initial testimony” and “urgent investigative actions are presently underway to found each the circumstances of this murder”.

“I convey instrumentality enforcement for their swift and coordinated work. All the circumstances of this horrific execution indispensable beryllium uncovered,” helium said.

On Saturday, Parubiy, 54, who served arsenic talker from April 2016 to August 2019, was shot dead successful the occidental metropolis of Lviv. He was 1 of the protestation leaders successful 2013-14, calling for person ties with the European Union.

A constabulary serviceman guards the spot wherever Andriy Parubiy was killed successful Lviv, Ukraine, August 30, 2025 [Roman Baluk/Reuters]

Internal Affairs Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote connected Telegram connected Sunday nighttime that dozens of constabulary officers and information officers had been progressive successful the cognition to apprehension the fishy successful the Khmelnytsky portion of occidental Ukraine.

According to Klymenko, the transgression was “carefully prepared: the docket of the deceased’s movements was studied, the way was laid, and an flight program was thought out”.

Some tributes from Ukrainian officials to Parubiy hinted astatine suspicions of Russian engagement successful the killing. Since Russia invaded Ukraine successful 2022, some sides person accused each different of assassinations of cardinal governmental and subject leaders.

According to the Russian authorities media, Parubiy had been wanted by Russian authorities since 2023.

As a young man, helium had campaigned for Ukraine’s independency from the Soviet Union. He was besides a cardinal protagonist of promoting the usage of Ukrainian implicit the Russian connection – a highly politicised issue.

During the 2014 Maidan protests, pursuing then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s determination to cancel a planned relation statement with the EU owed to aggravated unit from Moscow, Parubiy was the “commander” of the opposition’s self-defence forces.

The aforesaid year, helium had survived an assassination effort by a grenade, media reports said.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies