The public assassination of leading Ukrainian fascist Andrey Parubiy has many pointing the finger at Russia and not without good reason. He was infamously implicated in the Maidan sniper provocation at the height of 2014’s Color Revolution, the Odessa Trade Union fire shortly after, and the onset of the then-Ukrainian Civil War in Donbass via his brief role as Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council. Parubiy was therefore an enemy of Russia and many there likely wanted him dead for a while.
At the same time, however, RT political analyst Nadezhda Romanenko put forth a compelling counterview arguing that his assassination was actually an inside job. According to her, Parubiy’s experience in co-organizing EuroMaidan and his alliance with former President Petro Poroshenko made him a natural enemy of Zelensky, who fears being overthrown. He also knows too many secrets about post-Maidan Ukraine so having him take them all to the grave would fill many co-conspirators with relief.
These are valid points that shouldn’t be dismissed as a “conspiracy theory”. After all, a Ukrainian Neo-Nazi assassinated their country’s top “linguistic nationalist” in July 2024 due to a perceived ideological slight, which interestingly happened in Lvov just like Parubiy’s assassination. That city is a hotbed of Ukrainian fascism where various factions are known to occasionally war against one another. It therefore wouldn’t be too difficult in theory for Zelensky’s clique to put out a hit against Parubiy there.
Likewise, a rival fascist faction might have simply taken him out on their own for whatever their ideological or business-related reason might have been, thus making it difficult to conclude who’s responsible. Even though his suspected assassin was detained less than 48 hours after the assassination, any potential claims by that individual of having been contracted by Russia should be treated with the utmost skepticism due to Ukraine’s use of torture to extract “politically convenient” confessions.
Regardless of whoever ordered Parubiy’s assassination and why, the fact is that a leading fascist ideologue has just been removed from the country’s political scene. Moreover, he was a long-standing and very close ally of Poroshenko, one of Zelensky’s top rivals. Add to it his experience co-organizing EuroMaidan and it’s clear that his elimination will indeed have a political impact at home. This comes a month after Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service reported that the US is seeking to replace Zelensky.
The short-lived protests that broke out over the summer after the government’s attempt to neutralize anti-corruption institutions might have spooked Zelensky or someone close to him into fearing that Poroshenko might soon put Parubiy to use co-organizing another Maidan. It’s therefore not conspiratorial to speculate that he, or one of his allies without him even knowing, contracted local fascists in Lvov to put a hit out on Parubiy there. This paranoia might have thus led to his assassination.
From Russia’s stance, Parubiy’s assassination is bittersweet since he was its enemy who many likely wanted dead for a while, but him being killed right now might impede a speculative US and/or intra-fascist plot to replace Zelensky. Accordingly, Russia would have probably assassinated him before all this political intrigue developed in Kiev or sometime after it settles down if it truly had him in its crosshairs, thus casting doubt on the theory that it was responsible and lending credence to this being an inside job.
