KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A former Ukrainian lawmaker best known for her crusade to promote the Ukrainian language has died after being shot in the street by an unknown assailant.
Iryna Farion, 60, initially survived the attack in the western city of Lviv on Friday but later died from her injuries in a hospital. A manhunt is underway for her attacker, who fled the scene. Ukrainian authorities said an investigation was being carried out and the attack was being treated as a murder.
“All available surveillance cameras are being worked on, interviews with witnesses are ongoing and several districts are being inspected. All leads are being investigated, including the one leading 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 Ukrainian Security Service were mobilized to search for the criminal.”
Farion served as a member of the Ukrainian parliament between 2012 and 2014 and was best known for her campaigns to promote the use of the Ukrainian language by Russian-speaking Ukrainian officials. She controversially criticized the Russian-speaking members of Ukraine’s Azov regiment who defended the port city of Mariupol in the early days of the full-scale invasion.
Police are considering “personal animosity” against the former deputy due to her social and political activities as a likely motive behind the attack, said Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, who will oversee the investigation in Lviv.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, at least two people were killed and three others injured after a Russian missile attack on infrastructure in the country’s northeastern Kharkiv region, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Saturday.
Ukrainian authorities also confirmed that the death toll following Friday’s Russian attack on the city of Mykolaiv has risen to four. A child was among the victims, said the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych.
Writing about the Mykolaiv attack on social media, Zelenskyy said a projectile hit a playground near an apartment building.
“Russia proves every day with its terror that ‘pressure’ is not enough,” he said. “This destruction of lives must be stopped. We need new solutions to support our defenses. Russia must feel the power of the world.”
Ukraine’s Air Force said on Saturday that Russia launched four missiles and 17 drones overnight, of which 13 drones were shot down.
The attacks left thousands of people without power or running water in the Poltava region of central Ukraine, Governor Filip Pronin said. Russia has continually targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leading to nationwide blackouts.
A violent Russian attack in recent months has forced Kiev’s troops to withdraw from some towns and villages in the eastern Donetsk region,
The most recent targets are the mining town of Toretsk and the city of Pokrovsk, where Russia is intensifying its attacks. Ukrainian forces repelled 20 and 27 attacks in these areas respectively during 24 hours, Ukraine’s General Staff said on Friday. This was almost double the number of attacks recorded in other hotspots along the front line, he said.
The Russian Defense Ministry also announced on Saturday that it had shot down 26 Ukrainian drones over the Rostov region in southern Russia, several hundred kilometers (miles) from the front line. Three more drones were destroyed in the Belgorod region, as well as one in the Smolensk region, it said. No casualties were reported. ——
Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England contributed to this report. —— Complete coverage of the war in Ukraine:
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
