The investigation into the murder of Ukraine’s Iryna Farion, a right-wing extremist and former legislator from Svoboda (the re-branded name of the Socialist-Nationalist party), now points to a brawl with fellow neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
Farion incurred the wrath of the Azov element in the 3rd Assault Brigade, on Yanina Sokolova’s show “Rendezvous,” on November 5, 2023. Initially, Farion repeated her condemnation of any Ukrainian who uses Russian. When Sokolova said that the Azov Regiment and now the 3rd Assault Brigade both used Russian during battles. Farion attacked them, too: “What’s stopping you guys when you’re so strong and you’re so smart? What prevents you from fulfilling Article 29 of the Law on the Armed Forces of Ukraine? Do you guys know what discipline is in the army? If there is no discipline in the army, then there is no army. It’s a rabble then.”
She continued: “I can’t call them Ukrainians if they don’t speak Ukrainian. So let them call themselves Russians, that’s all. What prevents them? Why are they so stunned? Why did you agree on the Ukrainian language? They are such great patriots, show your patriotism. Learn the language of Taras Shevchenko, who practically lived outside Ukraine all his life, but created a monument to our life from this Ukrainian language.… Well, what kind of fool is this, to fight in the Ukrainian army and speak Russian!”
Maxim Zhorin, the deputy commander of the 3rd Brigade, and a former commander of the Azov Regiment, posted: “Irina Farion. No one gave you the right to open your mouth in the direction of the fighters of Azov, the Third Assault or any second unit of the Ukrainian army. So just go fuck!” The university fired her, but she sued, and two months ago (on May 29), the court ruled in her favor. That is certainly enough in Ukraine today to set into motion an assassination operation, culminating 7 weeks later. Ukrainska Pravda reported: “Investigators believe that Farion’s murder required at least a month of preparation, and that the perpetrator may have had accomplices.”
In Lviv on July 19, Farion was mortally wounded with one shot to her head, dying soon after in the hospital. Mariana Reva, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman, told Ukrainska Pravda that they are investigating a video posted on July 24 on Russian social media, indicating that the assassin was part of “National-Socialism/White Power” (NS/WP), a neo-Nazi, Russian-language terrorist group in Ukraine. It claims responsibility for arson attacks on Russian enlistment offices. The Russian Supreme Court designated it a “terrorist organization” in May 2021.
Most of the video shows a “Manifesto of the Ukrainian Autonomous Revolutionary Racist.’ The entire video is watermarked “NS/WP.” The video was posted on “ODERINT DUM METUANT” (Latin for “Let them hate, so long as they fear"). The NS/WP Telegram channel links to the video. The Manifesto calls Farion a “wrecker and racial traitor.” It claims responsibility for her murder. Then it has a 10-second clip purporting to be of the murder, and the scene depicted like the actual crime scene.