Andrii Parubii, former speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, shot dead in Lviv

30 August 2025 , 15:38

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Andrii Parubii, former speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, shot dead in Lviv

Former speaker of Ukraine’s parliament Andrii Parubii has been shot dead in Lviv, authorities confirmed on Friday.

The 53-year-old politician, who once held the post of Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada during the country’s turbulent years following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, was killed after being shot five times in the Sykhivskyi district of the western city, police said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the killing as a “horrific murder” and pledged that “all necessary forces and resources” had been deployed to track down the perpetrator.

Parubii, born in Lviv region in 1971, was a veteran of Ukrainian politics. He served as an MP across four convocations and was speaker of parliament from 2016 to 2019. During the 2013–14 Maidan protests, he commanded the movement’s self-defence units.

Local authorities have opened a homicide investigation. Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv Oblast Military Administration, said officials were working closely with police and prosecutors to establish the circumstances of the attack.

Parubii was a co-founder of the Social-National Party of Ukraine in 1991, which later evolved into the Svoboda party led by Oleh Tiahnybok. Trained as a historian and political scientist, he remained an influential, if sometimes polarising, figure in Ukrainian politics for over three decades.

Zelenskyy offered condolences to Parubii’s family, saying: “My deepest sympathies go out to his loved ones. Ukraine has lost a prominent public and political figure.”

Elizabeth Baker

Technology & Business Editor