Former Ukrainian lawmaker Iryna Farion was shot in the head on Friday outside her home in Lviv. Farion later succumbed to her injuries and died at the hospital, doctors told the news outlet RBC-Ukraine. She was 60 years old.
Iryna Farion, May 8, 2023
Roman Baluk / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA
Commenting on the attack (before news of Farion’s death), President Zelensky said all available resources were being mobilized in response to the crime. At the time of this writing, a manhunt is underway for the shooter, who is reportedly in his early 20s and was seen around Farion’s apartment building on multiple occasions over the previous two weeks. Eyewitnesses told journalists that the gunman was wearing gloves when he approached Farion and shot her in the temple of her head.
Iryna Farion was a controversial public figure. Last November, she argued in a televised interview that Russian-speaking members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces aren’t true Ukrainians. She also published a letter of support from a student in occupied Crimea, revealing the person’s identity and exposing him to arrest by the Russian police. (The Ukrainian authorities investigated Farion’s role in that episode, and she was suspended for several months from her job at the Lviv Polytechnic National University.)
