Ukrainian former lawmaker killed in suspected assassination as civilians die in Russian airstrikes

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian former 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 assault in the western city of Lviv on Friday, but later died from her wounds in a hospital. A manhunt is currently underway for her attacker, who fled from the scene. Ukrainian officials said an investigation is being carried out and that the attack is being treated as an assassination.

“All available surveillance cameras are being worked on, witness interviews are ongoing and several districts are being surveyed. All leads are being investigated, including the one that leads to Russia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on his official Telegram channel Saturday.

“All necessary forces from the National Police of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Security Service have been deployed 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 Ukrainian officials who spoke Russian. She controversially criticized Russian-speaking members of Ukraine’s Azov regiment who defended the port city of Mariupol in the first days of the full-scale invasion.

Police are considering “personal animosity” toward the former MP 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 more injured after a Russian missile strike on infrastructure in the country’s northeastern Kharkiv region, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said Saturday.

Ukrainian officials also confirmed that the death toll following a Russian strike Friday on the city of Mykolaiv, had risen to four. A child was among the victims, said the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych.

Writing about the Mykolaiv strike on social media, Zelenskyy said that a projectile had hit a playground next to an apartment block.

“Russia proves every day with its terror that ‘pressure’ is not enough,” he said. “This destruction of life must be stopped. We need new solutions to support our defenses. Russia must feel the power of the world.”

Ukraine’s air force said Saturday that Russia had launched four missiles and 17 drones overnight, of which 13 drones had been shot down.

The attacks have left thousands of people without power or running water in the Poltava region of central Ukraine, Gov. Filip Pronin said. Russia has continuously targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leading to blackouts across the country.

A pulverizing Russian onslaught in recent months has forced Kyiv’s troops to withdraw from some towns and villages in the eastern Donetsk region,

The latest targets are the mining town of Toretsk and the city of Pokrovsk, where Russia is stepping up its assaults. Ukrainian forces repelled 20 and 27 attacks on those areas respectively over 24 hours, Ukraine’s General Staff said Friday. That was almost double the number of assaults recorded at other hot spots along the front line, it said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry also announced Saturday that it had shot down 26 Ukrainian drones over Russia’s southern Rostov region, several hundred kilometers (miles) from the front line. Three more drones were destroyed over the Belgorod region, as well as one over the Smolensk region, it said. No casualties were reported. ——

Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report. —— Full coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine