Nationalist campaigner for the Ukrainian language is shot dead in Lviv

A nationalist former member of Ukraine’s parliament known for her vociferous campaigns to defend the Ukrainian language has died after being shot in Lviv.

Police launched a wide search for the gunman alleged to have shot Iryna Farion, 60, on a street in the western city.

The regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyi, said on Telegram that Farion had died after being taken to hospital. The interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, had earlier said that the shooting was being treated as an attempted assassination.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was receiving regular reports on efforts to capture the gunman. He said any act of violence was to be condemned.

Farion, a linguist, became a member of the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party in 2005 and was elected to parliament in 2012, but failed in subsequent attempts to win a seat. She had also served on Lviv regional council.

She gained notoriety for frequent campaigns to promote the Ukrainian language and discredit public officials who spoke Russian.

In 2018, when Ukraine was fighting Russian-financed separatists who had seized territory in the east, she called for a drive to “punch every Russian-speaking person in the jaw”.

In the early months of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Farion denounced Russian-speaking fighters of the Azov regiment who defended the port city of Mariupol for three months.

Although Ukrainian is the sole state language of Ukraine, many of its people speak Russian as a first language, a legacy of Soviet rule, when Ukrainian was under official pressure.

Promoting the language has long been an important issue, with parliament passing legislation to entrench its use in public life and in the services industry.