Version with Russian neo-Nazis is implausible: SBU Major General on Farion's murder

He said this on the Espreso TV channel.

"The organisation that they are now trying to accuse of Farion's murder simply does not exist, it is fake. This organisation existed in the early 2000s. The number of members of this organisation was no more than 100 people. It has effectively collapsed. The Russian special services took control of this structure. The Russian special services actively used it as a fake organisation to lure some supporters of a particular ideology there. They accumulated them there and detained them from time to time. That is, it was a structure controlled by the special services after the 2000s. We heard about it again when active hostilities began," Yahun said.

According to the SBU reserve major general, Russian special services tried to use this structure. Allegedly, Russian neo-Nazis have contacts with Ukraine and support Ukraine.

"This was done in order to be able to logically explain where the Nazis came from in Ukraine and why denazification was needed. All this was sewn with white threads. Now the Russians have once again pulled out the manual and decided to show that there are supporters of this ideology in Ukraine. To show that in Ukraine, the Nazis are launching terror against those who disagree with them.  At the same time, they were trying to undermine the language situation, to split society into Russian and Ukrainian speakers. I hope that the provocation of the Russian special services will fail in Ukrainian society," Yahun said.

The expert explained that using this message, the Russian special services could find a person who is addicted to something.

"Why not? We have a lot of people who sit quietly at home and write nonsense on social media. Russian special services catch them and start using them in their mercantile interests against Ukraine. So it is quite easy to find such a sick person and then use their video to your advantage. But the fact that the video appeared a few days later confirms that the Russians were preparing for this special operation. Now we can say for sure that Russian special services are behind it," Yahun said.

• A suspect in the murder of former MP and linguist Iryna Farion was detained in Dnipro. He is 18 years old.

Murder of former Ukrainian lawmaker and linguist Iryna Farion 

• On July 19, at about 19:30, an unknown assailant shot Iryna Farion in Lviv. The Lviv regional police confirmed this and reported that a special police operation was underway to detain him.

• Iryna Farion was taken to St. Panteleimon Hospital of the First Territorial Medical Association of Lviv. The woman was in critical condition, late in the evening of July 19, doctors reported that she was in a brain coma and on artificial lung ventilation. Doctors fought for her life to the last.

• On Espreso, Lviv City Council member Andirian Hutnyk provided details of the attempted assassination of Iryna Farion. He said that an unknown young man of 20-25 years old "was wearing some kind of hat". He fired a shot at her head with a firearm, the bullet hit her temple, the shot was from a gun without a silencer.

• Subsequently, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that the attack on Iryna Farion was classified as an attempted murder. The Prosecutor General's Office noted that a pre-trial investigation had been launched.

• President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy also reacted to the attempted murder of Iryna Farion. He said that all the necessary forces of the National Police of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine are involved to establish the circumstances of this crime. "Obviously, any violence deserves only condemnation and everyone who is guilty of this attack must be held fully accountable," Zelenskyy wrote.
• Former MP, linguist and professor at Lviv Polytechnic Iryna Farion died in hospital in Lviv. The shot to her head on the evening of 19 July was fatal.
• On July 22, the former MP was buried in Lviv.