Image source, Getty Images
- author, Tom MacArthur
- role, BBC News
A former Ukrainian nationalist member of parliament has been killed in a shooting on the street in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
Irina Falion caused controversy in 2023 by suggesting that “true patriots” of Ukraine should not speak Russian under any circumstances.
The murder of the 60-year-old linguistics professor on Friday remains under investigation, with police saying it may have been a targeted attack.
Her attacker has not been identified. Police said a power outage affected security cameras in the area.
Lviv Oblast Governor Maksim Kozitsky said in a Telegram message that Falion died in hospital after the shooting.
Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said “this is not a random murder” and police were investigating the motive.
“There are already several versions. Here are the main ones: [linked to Farion’s] social and political activism and personal animus,” he said in a statement via the Telegram messaging service.
“We cannot rule out the possibility that the murder was commissioned,” he added.
“Any violence must be condemned and whoever is responsible for this attack must be held fully accountable,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a Telegram message.
Mr Farion’s hardline nationalist party, Svoboda (Freedom), said Russia was responsible for the killing.
“Moscow has fired on a Ukrainian-language temple,” the statement said.
In 2023, Farion said that true Ukrainian patriots should not speak Russian in any situation, including on the front line, because Russian is the language of the aggressor country.
She described Russian as “the language of the enemy that kills me, discriminates against me, humiliates me and rapes me”, adding: “How insane is it to fight in the Ukrainian army and speak Russian?”
Her comments caused a strong backlash in Ukraine at the time, with people accusing her of inciting hatred based on linguistic preferences.
She had been fired from her university in western Ukraine and was under investigation by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
In May, the Lviv Court of Appeal reportedly ruled to reinstate her to her post.
