A nationalist former member of Ukraine’s parliament known for his vigorous defense of the Ukrainian language has died after being shot dead in Lviv.
Police have launched a wide-ranging manhunt for the alleged gunman who fatally shot 60-year-old Iryna Farion on a street in the western city.
Regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi said on Telegram that Farion died after being taken to hospital. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said earlier that the shooting was being treated as an assassination attempt.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said he regularly receives reports of captured gunmen. He said any act of violence should be condemned.
Farion, a linguist, became a member of the nationalist Liberal Party in 2005 and was elected to parliament in 2012, but subsequently failed in his attempt to win a seat. She also served on the Lviv Regional Council.
She is notorious for her frequent campaigns to promote the Ukrainian language and smear Russian-speaking public officials.
In 2018, as Ukraine battled Russian-funded separatists who seized territory in the east, she called for a push to “slap every Russian-speaking person on the chin”.
In the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Faryon denounced the Russian-speaking fighters of the Azov regiment who had defended the port city of Mariupol for three months.
Although Ukrainian is Ukraine’s only official language, many Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language, a legacy of the Soviet era when Ukrainian language came under official pressure.
The promotion of the language has long been an important issue, with parliament passing legislation to consolidate its use in public life and services.
