The head of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, commented on the murder of Ukrainian linguist and public figure Iryna Farion.
On the day of her funeral, he wrote a post in which he called the cold-blooded murder of the famous linguist a challenge for the entire Ukrainian society and a crime against the fundamental rights and freedoms of Ukrainians. Budanov is convinced that she was killed for her Ukrainian position.
"This tragedy has once again demonstrated that the enemy seeks to use any tools to divide our nation," he wrote.
He emphasised that the right to opinion and to defend one's beliefs is sacred, despite differences in political positions. Anyone who encroaches on this right must be punished, the DIU chief added.
Murder of Iryna Farion
On the evening of 19 July, an unknown person shot Iryna Farion near her home in Lviv. The bullet hit her in the head. The woman was hospitalised, but it was not possible to save her - the wound was too severe. Irina Farion died in hospital.
Not only the police but also the Security Service were involved in the investigation of the cynical murder. Law enforcement officers found out that before the murder, Farion's neighbours had seen an unknown man near her house. Due to the power outage, surveillance cameras could not record him all the time, but there is reason to believe that he could have been the perpetrator of the crime.
On 21 July, police released a video of a man believed to be involved in the murder. He is approximately 20 years old.
Law enforcement officers are considering all versions of the motive for the crime. Farion, defending the interests of the Ukrainian language, sometimes made radical statements, and last year she was suspended from teaching at Lviv Polytechnic after she said that she did not consider Russian-speaking soldiers of Azov and the 3rd Assault Brigade to be Ukrainians if they could not speak Ukrainian. She also published a letter addressed to her from a student from the occupied Crimea. The letter contained the student's personal data, and the occupiers used it to put pressure on him. After these episodes, the SBU opened proceedings against Farion. Eventually, in June, the linguist was reinstated in her position at the university.