August 30 - Andriy Parubiy, godfather of the modern Ukrainian nationalist movement, is shot 8 times by a man posing as a delivery driver in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
Parubiy in the 1990s, when he was leader of the Social-National Party of Ukraine
The assassin acted highly professionally. Reports state that 7 bullets were found in Parubiy’s body. No footage of the assassin’s face during or directly after the killing has emerged - he was covered by his motorcycle helmet at all times. He placed the gun into his delivery box as he left. The weapon is yet to be found.
36 hours later, late on September 1, law enforcement declares it has captured the killer. One Mykhailo Stselnikov, born 1973. He is arrested in the Khmelnitsky region, central Ukraine.
Stselnikov promptly confesses, telling journalists in court on September 2 that he had taken revenge for his son, who had died in the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2023 around Bakhmut:
All I want now is for the verdict to be announced quickly—yes, I admit, I killed him [Parubiy]—and I want to request to be exchanged for prisoners of war so I can go [to Russia] and find my son's body
However, he denied reports by some Ukrainian television channels that Russian operators had ‘blackmailed’ him into committing the murder through the possibility of seeing his son’s body.
When asked why he chose Parubiy, who hadn’t been visibly active in politics since 2019, he answered that it was ‘because Parubiy was nearby’, and that ‘it would have been [ex-president] Poroshenko if I lived in Vynnytsia [Poroshenko’s home city]’. According to him, this was an act of ‘personal revenge against the Ukrainian authorities’.
Poroshenko
But isn’t that an interesting reference to Poroshenko? Parubiy was an MP in Poroshenko’s party, European Solidarity. Not only that, but Poroshenko is probably Zelensky’s greatest enemy at the moment, as well as being the most powerful ally of ex-head of the army Valery Zaluzhny. Finally, take into account that Parubiy made it very clear between 2019 to 2024 that he believed Zelensky to be a pro-Russian traitor, whether conscious of it or not. More on that later.
Of course, the general narrative in Ukraine is that the Kremlin is behind the killing of the great patriot Parubiy.
Parubiy (seated) in the 90s.
Ukrainian media has also latched onto Stselnikov, painting him as a pro-Russian traitor. He even called himself Alexander Pushkin online. He also doubted Russian responsibility for the Bucha killings of 2022 and believed the nationalist regime change of 2014 was responsible for the current war. Who would have thought that a resident of patriotic Lviv could have such treacherous views!
Just take a look at the contents of his flat, per the police report:
"33 orders and medals from the USSR and Ukraine, and 25 pins and metal stars." Additionally, the following items were found in Stselnikov's possession:
—A lapel pin with the inscription "For the Taking of Budapest" [a Soviet WW2 medal - EIU];
—Pins with the inscriptions "Society for the Struggle for Sobriety" [Soviet-era - EIU];
—50 spent cartridge casings;
—A silencer.
The last of the Mohicans - a true boomer patriot of the USSR.
If that’s really what happened, the Stselnikov story needs to be made into some sort of film or novel. An unemployed father long estranged from his son, wracked with guilt over the fact that he couldn’t stop him from volunteering to fight and die in a meaningless war, decides to commit a perhaps (or perhaps not) equally meaningless act of revenge. Meanwhile, his nationalist journalist ex-wife writes a book about how proud she is of her son’s path. More on that later.
However, I think you’ll already be able to identify several strange things about this narrative of the lone wolf Stselnikov, who supposedly killed with the intent of getting sent to Russia. You wouldn’t be alone - Ukrainian political analyst Konstantin Bondarenko wrote this on September 1:
I read the version of the motive that the so-called "Parubiy's killer" (or rather, the person they are trying to present to us as the killer) allegedly had. The man was allegedly blackmailed by the Russians for a year with the threat of not returning his deceased son's body (or, according to another version, the location of the burial site).
So, just imagine the motivation: you kill Parubiy, you get a life sentence, and we will tell you where your son's grave is, we'll send you the coordinates. And we are expected to believe this. In my opinion, this is a disgrace for Ukrainian law enforcement—to manipulate facts under political pressure.
It should be noted that many Ukrainians aren’t quite as saddened about Parubiy’s death as the western media is.
Ukrainian liberal nationalist commentator Vitaliy Portnikov made the following complaint:
You saw what is happening on social media regarding Parubiy's death. You saw it, right? Yes, one can assume that some of it are bots, but we are once again convinced of just how many Ukrainian citizens are, in fact, like a litmus test, carriers of the Russian [worldview].
These people are under bombs in Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, and Kyiv. They risk death every day, but they continue to be representatives of Russian political philosophy.
For them, Parubiy is still a greater enemy than Putin. They still think that if there were no people like Parubiy, they would live in heartfelt understanding with Russia.
Maybe there would be less Ukrainian and more Russian. Maybe this Ukraine would look like a colony of Russia, but at least no one would be shooting. But when these Parubiys went to the Maidan to defend their rights, which are not our rights, that's when it all started. And now we're supposed to feel sorry for him?
If there had been no Parubiy, there would be no Putin and no war. That's their logic.
Portnikov, who has lived his entire life off grants from USAID and the Open Society Foundation, is much better equipped than low-iq everymen to understand the true purpose of life. He is the author of such immortal quotes as ‘getting politicians to fight is a return to feudalism. We live in democracy, the people must fight’ and ‘the people who perish and die are building their country. They have gained an opportunity they would never have had if they had lived in Great Britain, France, Germany, or Poland. It is simply amazing how lucky they are.’
Anyway, onto Parubiy and his strange killer. Patsy, vigilante, or a secret third thing?
The sad Stselnikov story
Now, let’s assume that the stories put forth by Stselnikov is true, which is not impossible. Even if he didn’t kill Parubiy, the Stselnikov family tragedy is a symptomatic fragment of the war.
Mykhailo Stselnikov’s son, Mykhailo-Viktor Stselnikov, was a typical representative of the idealist men who volunteered to fight in the Ukrainian army in 2022-3. A programmer - many of the volunteers were relatively well-off, and some even returned from abroad to fight. A demographic that largely no longer exists - Mykhailo-Victor died in Bakhmut in 2023 like many others. And like many others, his body was never found. Now, it is the unenthusiastic workers and peasants forcibly mobilized to fight.
There are several narratives about the relationship between father and son. Olena Cherninka, Stselnikov’s estranged wife, posted this to facebook on September 3:
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