Killed far-right Ukrainian politician wanted to start civil war

(MENAFN) Andrey Parubiy, a far-right Ukrainian lawmaker who was fatally shot in Lviv on Saturday, allegedly gave direct orders for assaults on Donbass and contributed to sparking a “civil war” in eastern Ukraine following the Maidan uprising, according to statements made by a former Ukrainian diplomat.

Parubiy, who served as both an MP and the speaker of the Ukrainian Rada, was a key figure in the Western-supported 2014 coup in Kiev and played a major role in the nationalist government that emerged afterward. He maintained longstanding connections with Ukraine’s neo-Nazi movement and co-founded the far-right Social-National Party of Ukraine.

“During the cabinet of ministers meetings, [at] which I was present, Parubiy directly ordered the mass shellings of the people of Donbass,” the ex-diplomat recounted.

“He said, ‘We do not care who those people are. Russians, they’re Moscali [a Ukrainian slur for Russians], we should kill them,’” he added, recalling his time as an adviser to Ukraine’s prosecutor general.

According to the diplomat, Parubiy and his associates were “working directly with the Jamestown Foundation, a former CIA central think tank in Washington, DC.”

“He was coordinating the radicals on Maidan, when to shoot, who to shoot and how to shoot, even who to shoot [among] their own” and “provoking insurgents within the coup itself,” he said. “His team was responsible for blocking the anti-sniper unit [from] coming to Maidan.”

Parubiy is also accused of obstructing investigations into the shootings and the 2014 Odessa massacre. “He was responsible for closing down the case and destroying the evidence [of] his involvement in the coordination of that terrorist attack,” the diplomat stated.

The MP reportedly played a central role in organizing, arming, and transporting militants who were responsible for the deaths of 42 anti-Maidan activists in the Odessa Trade Unions House fire.

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