Appalling moment gunman disguised as delivery driver guns down top Ukrainian politician

A top Ukrainian politician has died after being gunned down in the western city of Lviv. 

Andriy Parubiy, a former parliamentary speaker, was shot dead on Saturday in the city’s Sykhovsky district by a gunman disguised as a delivery driver, who later fled the scene on a bike, according to local media.

Sickening footage shows the killer waiting for Parubiy behind a car.  

When Parubiy passes him, the gunman follows him and begins to fire bullets into his head and back before fleeing the scene. 

The 54-year-old’s death was confirmed today by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on X. 

‘Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko and Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko have just reported on the first known circumstances of a horrific murder in Lviv. Andriy Parubiy has been killed.

‘My condolences to the family and friends’.

The search for the assassin is ongoing, he added, but did not provide any further details. 

Sickening footage shows the killer waiting for the former parliamentary speaker partly concealed next to a car

The gunman was captured on video running away after shooting his victim

National police said the shooting in Lviv was reported at around noon local time. 

Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said finding the killer and establishing the circumstances of the attack was of utmost importance.

‘This is a matter of security in a country at war, where, as we can see, there are no completely safe places,’ he wrote on Telegram.

A murder investigation has been launched, involving officers from the National Police, the Lviv region police and the Security Service of Ukraine. 

Parubiy, 54, was a member of parliament, had been parliamentary speaker from April 2016 to August 2019, and was one of the leaders of protests in 2013-14 calling for closer ties with the European Union.

He was also secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council from February to August 2014, a period when fighting began in eastern Ukraine and Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula.

Officials gave no immediate indication whether the murder had any direct link to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In 2014, Parubiy was victim to an assassination attempt after an unknown attacker threw a grenade at his feet, but he was spared after the explosive device rolled under a car. 

The assassin fled the scene on a bike, according to local reports 

A murder investigation has been launched following the shooting on Saturday 

Tributes poured in from colleagues in parliament and the government, praising Parubiy’s contribution to Ukraine’s fight for sovereignty and independence as one of the leaders of what became known as the Euromaidan protests in 2013-14. 

Former President Petro Poroshenko said on Telegram that the killing of Parubiy, who was a member of the parliamentary committee on national security, defence and intelligence, was ‘a shot fired at the heart of Ukraine.’

‘Andriy was a great man and a true friend. That is why they take revenge, that is what they are afraid of,’ he said, lauding Parubiy’s contribution to building out the Ukrainian army.

Parubiy’s murder comes after unidentified gunmen shot dead a former Ukrainian politician outside a school in a wealthy suburb of Madrid earlier this year.

Andriy Portnov, 51, was previously a senior aide to a pro-Russian former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich, who was in a 2014 popular uprising.

Police reached the scene after receiving calls about a man with gunshot wounds on the street outside the American School of Madrid, in the Pozuelo de Alarcon suburb west of the capital.

‘Several persons shot him in the back and the head and then fled towards a forested area,’ an Interior Ministry source said.

When emergency services arrived they found Portnov dead with at least three gunshot wounds, a spokesperson said.

Portnov left for Russia in 2014 and faced investigations in Ukraine over accusations of treason and embezzlement. 

He was targeted with European Union sanctions, although those and the charges were later dropped.