It took approximately 36 hours for Ukrainian police to track down and ultimately arrest the suspect in the murder of MP and former Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament Andriy Parubiy.
The perpetrator, who on Saturday morning, disguised as a courier, shot Parubiy eight times on one of the streets of Lviv and then fled the scene, was detained in his hideout in the Khmelnytskyi region. According to police, he probably planned to flee across the border of Ukraine, but investigators were faster, so the suspect ended up in handcuffs.
Today, his name is also known – the main suspect in the murder of Parubiy is 52-year-old Lviv resident Mykhailo Scelnikov.
He allegedly wanted revenge on the government
Scelnikov pleaded guilty in the courtroom, right in front of the Ukrainian media.
“This is my personal revenge on the Ukrainian government,” he said, but declined to comment on the other reasons for his actions. However, journalists later reminded him that Parubiy was not in the government, but in the opposition. He was a member of parliament from the opposition European Solidarity party.
At the same time, he was asked whether he could confirm that he was being blackmailed by the Russian secret services.
On the Monday after his arrest, reports emerged that the murder suspect had been blackmailed for a year by Russians who claimed to know where his son's body was. The father allegedly monitored Russian social media and made contact with people who were supposed to confirm that his son was dead.
Scelnikov's son Mykhailo-Viktor served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the 93rd Brigade and was probably killed near Bakhmut in 2023. According to the website Slidstvo.Info, he has been officially listed as missing since May 20, 2023 – the day the Russians managed to capture Bakhmut – and his body has not been recovered from the battlefield.
2He denied that he was being blackmailed by the Russians.
According to the website Vysokyj Zamok, the Russians allegedly took advantage of the father's tragedy and practically demanded a body for a body - to return the son's body for the murder of any well-known Ukrainian politician.
However, Scelnikov himself denied this on Tuesday."It's not true. I want them to issue a verdict as soon as possible, yes, I killed him, and I want them to exchange me for prisoners of war so that I can go (to Russia, ed.) and find my son's body," he said.
When asked why he chose Parubiy, he replied:"Because he was close. If I lived in Vinnytsia, it would be Petya (he was probably referring to former president Petro Poroshenko, who is from Vinnytsia, ed.)."
SBU talks about a possible order
The police themselves say that the perpetrator's act was not spontaneous and that he had been preparing for it for about a month. On Monday, they also said that they were working with multiple versions.
The head of the Lviv department of the Security Service of Ukraine, Vadym Onyshchenko, confirmed on Monday that they were also examining"evidence regarding the involvement of the special services of the Russian Federation."
According to BBC Ukraine, Onyshchenko later reported that"the crime shows signs of an order" and that there is information that "suggests the possible involvement of the special services of the Russian Federation in organizing the murder."
When asked by journalists about possible pressure on the attacker by Russian special services, law enforcement officials responded that"the detainee had certain circumstances why he committed the crime." However, they did not provide further details.
