“A blow to the heart of Ukraine”: Ukrainian Nazi politician Andriy Parubiy shot dead

Evidence collected on Saturday at the scene of the bloody crime in Lviv -- photo via junge Welt

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By Susann Witt-Stahl, junge Welt, September 1, 2025. Translated by Helmut-Harry Loewen.

President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his dismay at the “horrific murder” of Andriy Parubiy. The 54-year-old politician — president of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) from 2016 to 2019 and most recently a member of parliament for the European Solidarity party — was shot dead on Saturday by an unknown assailant on a street in Lviv where he died of his injuries. The motives for the crime are still unclear.

What Parubiy's party colleague Petro Poroshenko calls a “blow to the heart of Ukraine” is in reality a direct hit to the gut of the country's fascist right, which has lost one of its leading figures. Parubiy was co-founder of the neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (now Svoboda) and leader of its paramilitary wing, Patriot of Ukraine. He is also considered one of the architects of the Maidan revolt of 2013/2014 and was commander of the combat troops led by the Right Sector. According to research findings by Canadian political scientist Ivan Katchanovski, Parubiy, who was head of the National Security and Defence Council at the time, gave the order to “burn everything to the ground” during the attack by Nazi thugs on the trade union building in Odessa on May 2, 2014, in which more than forty anti-Maidan demonstrators died. As recently as 2018, Parubiy praised Adolf Hitler's achievements in “direct democracy” on a TV show.

Politicians and institutions of the “rules-based” Western order clearly believe that Parubiy was an exemplary representative of its values. The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, which is largely funded by the US government for "democracy promotion," said in an initial response that it was “shocked” by the loss of this ‘statesman’ and “valued partner.” German politicians are also mourning their Ukrainian colleague, who, as Katchanovski documents, branded the US and Russia as enemies of the “spirit of the white race” in the late 1990s. Bundestag President Julia Klöckner (Christian Democratic Union) said she was “very saddened” by the news of his death. German Green Party leader Franziska Brantner hailed Parubiy as a fighter for “a free Ukraine in the EU.”

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Original German article: Susann Witt-Stahl, “Schlag ins Herz der Ukraine.“ Ukrainischer Nazipolitiker Andrij Parubij erschossen. Auch deutsche Grünen-Chefin Brantner trauert. Junge Welt, 01.09.2025:  https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/507306.krieg-in-der-ukraine-schlag-ins-herz-der-ukraine.html