Ukraine’s former MP Iryna Farion dies in hospital after armed attack

The press service of the First Medical Association of Lviv reported this, according to Espreso.

"Unfortunately, despite all the efforts of the doctors, despite all the resuscitation measures taken, they failed to save Iryna Farion's life. The patient died. She was admitted to us in critical condition with a severe penetrating gunshot brain injury. She was immediately taken to the operating room, underwent surgery and was even transferred to the intensive care unit to continue treatment. However, the patient's heart failed. Unfortunately, medicine was powerless in this situation. We extend our sincere condolences to the family of Irina Farion," said Natalia Matolinets, head of the anesthesiology service at the First Medical Association of Lviv.

Maksym Kozytskyi, the head of the Lviv Regional Military District Administration, also reported this information.

"It is a great pity, but despite all the efforts of the doctors, they failed to save Iryna Farion. My sincere condolences to the family, friends and students of Iryna Dmytrivna. The search for the attacker is still ongoing," he wrote.

Mayor Andriy Sadovyi expressed his condolences to the family of Iryna Farion.

"The community of Lviv expresses its sincere condolences to the family and everyone who knew and loved her. This is very scary and terrible. I always say that there is no safe place in Ukraine anymore. But to have such a bold, brazen murder. The killer must be found! I am grateful to the law enforcement agencies that are actively working on this. The customer must also be known and be held fully responsible," he said.

What is known about the armed attack on 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.

Iryna Farion: a biography of a scientist and politician

Iryna Farion was born in 1964 in Lviv. Her father worked as a plumber at a factory, and her mother was a teacher, and later she was the head of the reading room and acquisitions department at the Lviv Regional Youth Library for over 40 years.

In the 1970s, Iryna Farion studied at Lviv Secondary School No.75. In 1982, she entered the Ivan Franko State University of Lviv, Faculty of Philology, graduating with honors in 1987.

Since her student days, Iryna Farion has been interested in obtaining academic degrees and continuing her research. From 1986 to 1991, she worked as a laboratory assistant at the Department of General Linguistics at the Ivan Franko State University of Lviv. This was the beginning of her work as a teacher. In 1990-1995, she worked as an hourly lecturer at the Department of Languages at the Lviv State Institute of Applied Arts.

For the longest time, she worked as a teacher of Ukrainian at Lviv Polytechnic National University, from 1991 to 2023, until she was scandalously fired. However, in 2024, she was reinstated in court.

Farion is the recipient of many different awards: The Oleksa Hirnyk International Prize of the League of Ukrainian Philanthropists for National and Patriotic Education of Youth, the Ivan Ohienko Prize, the Borys Grinchenko All-Ukrainian Prize, etc.

Despite her marriage and subsequent divorce from her husband, Iryna Farion kept her father's surname. Farion had one daughter, Sofia Semchyshyn.

At the age of forty, Iryna Farion became actively involved in politics. In 2005, she became a member of the Svoboda party, and a year later she became a deputy of the Lviv Regional Council from this party. At a session of the Lviv Regional Council in February 2011, she presented a draft decision demanding the resignation of the Minister of Education, Science, Youth and Sports, Dmytro Tabachnyk, who, in her opinion, “fatally mistook his place of residence and his historical existence.”

In 2012, she was elected to the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) of the 7th convocation. At the same time, Farion headed the Parliamentary Subcommittee on Higher Education of the Committee on Science and Education. She was a member of parliament until November 27, 2014. During her time in the Verkhovna Rada, she made a number of statements. One of the most famous was her assessment of Mykola Azarov's knowledge of the Ukrainian language, the head of the Yanukovych government. At the time, she said that “only those who are politically biased or mentally retarded do not know the language.”

In general, Iryna Farion gained her popularity thanks to her statements about language.

Despite various provocative statements, Iryna Farion was also actively involved in creating popular educational projects that talked about the history and culture of Ukrainians. 

Recently, Iryna Farion has been actively running her YouTube channel, where she analyzes the current military and political situation in the country.

Scandal with Iryna Farion

In a TV program, Iryna Farion, linguist and former far-right lawmaker, emphasized that she could not consider Russian-speaking Ukrainian military as Ukrainians. She called them “Muscovite bulls who disgrace the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” The public reacted to the former MP's scandalous words, and the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, appealed to the National Police of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting regarding discrimination. 

The Security Service of Ukraine initiated criminal proceedings and ordered a number of examinations regarding the statements and publications of former MP Iryna Farion.

On November 15, 2023, it was reported that Iryna Farion was dismissed from Lviv Polytechnic.

On May 29, 2024, the Lviv Court of Appeal ruled to reinstate Iryna Farion as a professor of the Ukrainian Language Department of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Lviv Polytechnic.

In July, Iryna Farion donated the salary she had received from the university for her forced absence to purchase drones.