Suspect in Ukraine politician’s murder denies working for Russia

Andriy Parubiy, a leading figure in the country's pro-European protest movements of 2004 and 2014, was shot dead on August 30 in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Photo / Tetiana Dzhafarova, AFP

A man accused of murdering a pro-Western Ukrainian politician says that he carried out the killing but denied working for Russia, describing the attack as “personal revenge”.

Mykhailo Stselnikov, 52, was arrested late on Sunday after allegedly shooting former Ukrainian parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy the previous day in the western city of Lviv.

During a pre-trial hearing at a Lviv court on Tuesday, Stselnikov told reporters that “this is my personal revenge against the Ukrainian authorities”.

“Yes. I admit that I killed him,” he said, sitting in a glass cage that defendants use in most courts in Ukraine.

When asked whether he worked directly with Russian special services, he replied: “No”.

Ukrainian police said on Monday that Russia was linked to the “carefully planned” crime, without providing further details.

Video appeared to show the assailant, dressed as a courier driver, shoot Parubiy multiple times before fleeing the scene.

Hundreds of people, including senior officials, gathered on Tuesday in downtown Lviv to offer their condolences to Parubiy’s family.

Andriy Saichuk, a 49-year-old television host, told AFP that he saw Parubiy as “the embodiment of the type of politician that modern Ukraine sorely lacks”.

“He was, in fact, the face and heart of both the first and second Maidans, the Ukrainian revolutions, which were essentially a movement for Ukrainian independence from Moscow.”

Parubiy, a former Parliament Speaker, was a leading figure in the country’s pro-European protest movements of 2004 and 2014.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the murder as “horrific”.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, both sides have accused each other of planning and carrying out assassinations of key political and military figures.

Russian state media said Parubiy has been wanted by Russian authorities since 2023.

-Agence France-Presse