KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A former Ukrainian lawmaker best known for his work promoting the Ukrainian language has been shot dead in the street by an unidentified assailant.
Irina Falion, 60, initially survived the attack in the western city of Lviv on Friday but later died of her injuries in hospital. A search is underway for the assailant, who fled the scene. Ukrainian authorities said an investigation is ongoing and the attack is being treated as an assassination.
“All available surveillance cameras are being activated, witness interviews are underway and several districts are being searched. All leads are being investigated, including those linked to Russia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on his official Telegram channel on Saturday.
“All necessary forces of the National Police of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine have been deployed in the search for the perpetrators.”
Farion, who served as a member of the Ukrainian parliament from 2012 to 2014, was best known for his campaign to encourage Russian-speaking Ukrainian government officials to use the Ukrainian language. He sparked controversy by criticizing Russian-speakers in Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, which defended the port city of Mariupol in the first days of the full-scale invasion.
Interior Minister Igor Klimenko, who is overseeing the investigation in Lviv, said police were considering “personal hostility” towards the former lawmaker’s social and political activity as a possible motive for the attack.
Ukraine’s neo-Nazis may be a problem after all, reports New York Times https://t.co/6JClF7oALC
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Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian missiles struck infrastructure in the Kharkiv region in the country’s northeast, killing at least two people and wounding three, Governor Oleg Shynievbov said on Saturday.
Ukrainian authorities also confirmed the death toll from Friday’s Russian attack on the city of Mykolaiv had risen to four. The victims included a child, the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Shenkevich, said.
President Zelenskyy wrote about the attack on Mykolaiv on social media, saying bullets had landed in a playground next to his apartment building.
“Every day, Russia proves with terrorism that ‘pressure’ alone is not enough,” he said. “Such destruction of life must stop. New solutions are needed to support defense. Russia must realize the power of the world.”
The Ukrainian Air Force said on Saturday that Russia had fired four missiles and 17 drones overnight, 13 of which were shot down.
Governor Philip Pronin said the attack left thousands of people without power or water in the central Ukrainian region of Poltava as Russia continues to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing power outages across the country.
A Russian military onslaught in recent months has forced Kiev’s forces to withdraw from several towns and villages in the eastern Donetsk region.
The latest targets are the mining towns of Tretsk and Pokrovsk, where Russia has stepped up attacks. The Ukrainian General Staff said on Friday that Ukrainian forces had repelled 20 and 27 attacks on those areas respectively in 24 hours, nearly double the number of attacks recorded in other conflict zones along the front line, the military said.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said on Saturday it had shot down 26 Ukrainian drones over the Rostov region in southern Russia, hundreds of kilometers from the front line. It said three more were shot down over the Belgorod region and one over the Smolensk region. No casualties were reported.
Ukraine: Dozens dead, thousands without power as Russian offensive continueshttps://t.co/apSU09tYFo
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