Ex-speaker of Ukraine's parliament meets violent end in Lviv gun attack

In a shocking turn of events, Andriy Parubiy, former head of Ukraine's parliament, was shot dead in Lviv on Saturday. The shooting occurred around noon (0900 GMT).

Parubiy, who was 54 years old, emerged as a commander of a tent camp and leader of the Self-Defence Maidan organization during the pro-Western revolution at Independence Square in Kiev. He later held the position of secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine in 2014.

The shooting has sent shockwaves throughout Ukraine, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressing his condolences to Parubiy's family. Zelenskyy has engaged all necessary forces and means in the investigation and search for the killer.

The perpetrator who shot Parubiy in Lviv on Saturday was a food delivery courier disguised as an e-bike rider who fired about eight shots at him before fleeing the scene. Law enforcement is still searching for the gunman.

Iryna Farion, an ultra-nationalist politician, died in an assassination in Lviv last year. Farion was a parliamentary deputy for the right-wing nationalist Svoboda party in the Verkhovna Rada. She had trouble with the Ukrainian judiciary due to her anti-Russian statements.

The authorities were investigating a possible Russian connection at the time of Farion's death. Media reports suggest a bicycle courier from a delivery service allegedly fired the shots.

The shooting of Farion in July of the previous year involved a gunshot to the head in front of her home. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg condemned the Ukrainian authorities for the bloody riots and the fire disaster in Odessa in March 2014. During these street battles, several dozen people, mainly government opponents, were killed.

Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-aligned Russian political scientist, described Parubiy as one of the organizers of the events in Odessa on May 2, 2014, where several pro-Russian activists died in a fire at the trade union building.

Zelenskyy referred to Farion's death as a "horrendous murder." The investigations into both crimes and the search for the perpetrators are ongoing.