What do we know about Iryna Farion's assassination?

On the evening of 19 July, an assassination attempt was made on Iryna Farion, a linguist, professor at Lviv Polytechnic National University, and former Ukrainian MP. The incident took place in Lviv on Masaryk Street, near the apartment building where she lived. Witnesses reported that the killer fired a single shot and quickly fled the scene.

Farion sustained a gunshot wound to the head as a result of the attempt. She was taken urgently to a local hospital, where doctors tried for several hours to save her but were unable to do so. Iryna Farion died at 23:20.

The news was officially announced by Andrii Sadovyi, Mayor of Lviv, and Maksym Kozytskyi, Head of the Lviv Oblast Military Administration.

The crime has rocked the country and left many questions unanswered. Ukrainska Pravda presents the details of this high-profile murder, as well as the lines of enquiry being pursued by police.

The day of the murder

A friend of Farion's family told Ukrainska Pravda that the professor had been planning to leave Lviv for a short holiday, as it had been a long time since she last had a break. She had planned to spend Friday evening with her family, including her daughter and two grandchildren, whom she was on her way to visit.

"She called her daughter Sofiia just before the assassination attempt and said that she had just finished recording a new video for her YouTube channel and could relax now. She was going to theirs for dinner. The shooter hit her as she was waiting outside for a taxi," a friend of the deceased's family said.

Iryna Farion was taken to St Panteleimon's Hospital in Lviv at around 20:00 in a critical condition. Nataliia Matolinets, Head of Anaesthesiology at the First Medical Association of Lviv, said Farion immediately underwent a full-body CT scan and emergency surgery. Dmytro Symak, a close friend and colleague of the professor, was at the hospital as the team of doctors was trying to revive her.

He told Ukrainska Pravda that the police and the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) were at the hospital. "I was waiting to hear the outcome of the operation with her daughter Sofiia and the lawyer who assisted her in court after she was dismissed from Lviv Polytechnic, next to the intensive care unit. The doctors came out and immediately said that there was nothing they could do.

She was shot at close range, the bullet hit her in the head. They let us go into the intensive care unit. We went over to Iryna's bedside.

She was in a deep coma, but still breathing. The doctors started performing artificial respiration, starting her heart, doing everything possible and impossible for about 15 minutes. By that time, it was clear that it was over.

She died in front of our eyes. The doctors pronounced her dead," Symak said.

Lines of enquiry

As of the night of 19-20 July, the police have considered several theories as to why Iryna Farion was murdered. The main reasons are her public and political activities, or the perpetrator may have been someone with personal animosity towards her.

This was stated by Ihor Klymenko, Minister of Internal Affairs, during a night briefing. Klymenko travelled to Lviv immediately upon hearing about the attempted assassination. "Other lines of enquiry may of course emerge.

We already have some information about the crime and how it was carried out, but we are keeping it quiet for now because all the lines of enquiry are being checked out," Klymenko said. Another high-ranking law enforcement source said that as of 01:00 on 20 July, two potential suspects had been eliminated. The investigation and search for the killer is ongoing.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has tasked the entire police force of Lviv and part of the Lviv Oblast force with carrying out operational activities. In addition, authorised operatives and investigators from the National Police and the SSU have been sent to Lviv from Kyiv. The TV channel We-Ukraine quoted one of the residents of the apartment building on Masaryk Street in Lviv where Farion lived as saying that a stranger, aged about 18, had begun to hang around the entrance to the building about two weeks ago.

He would sit on a bench in front of the professor's entrance in the morning and not leave until the evening. A photograph published in the media shows him wearing a black panama hat, black glasses and a red T-shirt with the words "Los Angeles" on it.

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The stranger seen outside Farion's apartment block. Photo: Zakhid.net

"He had a very interesting style, and that's why I remembered him: it was hot, 40?C, and he'd be wearing sneakers, socks, sweatpants, a long sweatshirt like Americans wear, a hat and dark glasses. Whenever I went out or came home, he'd be there.

Three days ago, I came back around lunchtime, and he was sitting on the bench. I thought to myself, it's 40?C, it's hot, and he's sitting there, there must be something wrong with him. I went over to him and said: 'Excuse me, can I help you?' 'Everything's fine,' he replied."

Ihor Klymenko has confirmed that the stranger in the photo is the main suspect. The police are now looking for him. "The electricity is [periodically] cut off because of the rolling blackout priority system, so there have been problems determining who was at the entrance, including with the operation of the video cameras installed at the entrance, in order to confirm or eliminate this line of enquiry 100%," Klymenko said. "So we're checking all the information, working with witnesses, and contacting anyone who can provide additional information for the investigation."

Why was Iryna Farion so well-known?

Iryna Farion, 60, was born and bred in Lviv and studied and worked there for almost all her life.

She was a well-known Ukrainian language specialist who lectured at Lviv Polytechnic for almost 30 years and had also had a successful career in politics.

Stock photo: Iryna Farion

Farion joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in the late 1980s, although for a long time she categorically denied this. However, in 2013, journalists found documents in the State Archives of Lviv Oblast that confirmed her Communist Party membership. Farion refused to comment on this even after the documents were made public.

When a journalist asked her to respond, she said: "An eagle does not confess to hyenas." Later, however, she confirmed her membership of the CPSU. "As for my communist past. It lasted for one year, and so what?" the professor said. "Levko Lukianenko had a communist past, and he became the author of the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine.

The famous [dissident] Mykola Rudenko had a communist past: he was the secretary of the party committee of the Kyiv organisation, and then he destroyed that Kyiv organisation and served more than 10 years in prison for it. You can talk about someone's communist past when there are actions. What actions did Farion take during her one-year membership of the Communist Party?

None!" Farion had been a member of the conservative nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party since 2005. She was elected to Lviv Oblast Council in 2006 and to the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) as an MP in 2012, running as a Svoboda candidate in both cases.

During the 7th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada, when Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions were in power, she opposed all initiatives that restricted the Ukrainian language. Farion also supported the ban on the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in Ukraine. "I believe that this organisation, which calls itself the Moscow Patriarchate, has nothing to do with Christianity.

It is one of the biggest threats to the free and self-sufficient development of Ukraine. And as long as this institution occupies the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra (the Monastery of the Caves in Kyiv), Ukrainians will be oppressed," the professor said back in 2008. Svoboda failed to win any seats in the Verkhovna Rada in the 2014 elections, so Farion returned to Lviv and continued her work as a professor.

Stock photo: Iryna Farion

As the media outlet ZAXID.NET mentioned, Iryna Farion hosted a television series, The Greatness of the Personality, on the Rada TV channel from 2013 to 2019, which aimed to popularise knowledge about significant figures in Ukrainian history, culture and politics.

160 programmes were broadcast during that period. Farion also created and wrote a TV series entitled The Ukrainian Gene (2019-2023), which aired on the Lviv-based TV channel NTA. In addition, she ran two YouTube channels, Iryna Farion and Studio Farion, where she presented three series: Anti-Anglicism, Political Review, and Ukrainian Language Culture Courses.

The linguist frequently hit the headlines due to her passionate defence of the Ukrainian language and her no-holds-barred statements about everything Soviet and Russian in Ukraine. The SSU launched a criminal case against Iryna Farion in November 2023, conducting a psychological and linguistic analysis of her statements, after the professor stated that she did not recognise Russian-speaking military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "Can a soldier or officer not follow orders from his commanding officer without breaking the law?

I would like to ask every Russian-speaking soldier: have you read the law on the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Ukrainian ?onstitution, have you read what is written in Article 13? The language of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is the state language. So are you fighting for the Ukrainian state, or are you defending your right to be a speaker of the 'Russian world'?

At least speak surzhyk [a Ukrainian-Russian pidgin], but don't speak Russian," Farion said.

She also shared a post on her social media containing a screenshot of a message from a pro-Ukrainian student from Crimea that included his full name and other personal details. This is alleged to have resulted in the Crimean citizen being harassed by Russian secret services. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) turned up at the young man's home and took him to a "centre for combating extremism".

Later, the Russians released a video of him "repenting" on social media. The student was seated in front of a Russian flag and forced to record a "video confession" in which he said that he "completely renounces his views because he realises that he was wrong". His subsequent fate is unknown.

A criminal case was then launched against Farion for violating the equality of citizens, insulting the honour and dignity of a serviceman, and violating the secrecy of correspondence and privacy. The pre-trial investigation is still ongoing. This scandal led to protests by students at Lviv Polytechnic, who demanded Farion's dismissal.

On 15 November 2023, she was suspended from her post at the university. However, the Lviv Court of Appeal reinstated the professor in her position at the University in late May 2024 and ordered the payment of compensation for her forced absence in the amount of UAH 124,000 (US£3,000). Farion spent the money she received on drones for the Rubizh Brigade, the Syla Svobody (Power of Freedom) and Svoboda (Freedom) Battalions, and the 5th Assault Brigade.

She also announced a fundraising campaign called One Million for Drones to Kill the Enemy, with some of the funds raised going to the unit where her son-in-law Vasyl Osoba serves.

Ukrainian servicemen wrote "For Farion" on these mortar rounds in tribute to Iryna Farion, the former MP who was assassinated on 19 JulyPhoto: Vasyl Osoba, Iryna Farion's son-in-law, on Facebook

You can donate to the fundraiser using the following bank details: Target: UAH 1,000,000. Link: monobank

Bank card number: 5375 4112 2017 8318 PayPal: [email protected]

Written by Anhelina Strashkulych, Yevhen Buderatskyi, Rustem Khalilov, Mykhailo Kryhel and Sevgil Musaieva Translation: Violetta Yurkiv

Editing: Teresa Pearce