Learned to fly UAVs and lived with his mother: what is known about Farion’s alleged killer (photos, video)
25 July 2024 22:57
On Thursday, 25 July, law enforcement officers in one of Dnipro’s high-rise buildings detained a young man suspected of murdering politician and linguist Iryna Farion, which took place on 19 July in Lviv. "Komersant Ukrainian" decided to find out what is known about the man detained on suspicion of a high-profile crime.
How the suspect was identified
During a national telethon, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that photos from smart video surveillance cameras helped to identify the suspect and detain him. Klymenko is confident that the suspect had been preparing to kill Iryna Farion for at least two months. He rented at least three apartments in Lviv, changed his clothes, changed his gait and routes.
“He bought Panama, where the suspect was staying during the murder of Iryna Farion, back in May 2024. At least, he had been preparing for this for two months,” said the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
The Interior Minister added that units of the National Police and the National Guard combed 100 hectares of territory. The security forces interviewed hundreds of witnesses, processed and decrypted tens of terabytes of data from hundreds of surveillance cameras. About 58,000 people of the appropriate age travelling outside Ukraine were checked at the border.
The alleged killer of Iryna Farion: what is known about him
The OSINT department of Toronto Television has identified a man detained on suspicion of murdering a public figure. According to information journalists, it was an 18-year-old resident of Dnipro, 18-year-old Vyacheslav Zinchenko.
It is known that Vyacheslav was born on 3 April 2006. He studied at Dnipro gymnasium No. 62. He also he also played in the U-19 football team of the Moscow Children and Youth Sports School. In the 2023/2024 season, he played 3 matches for the team.
OSINT analysts claim that they even managed to find Viacheslav’s Telegram channel. He was subscribed to numerous far-right publics (including Russian ones) and posted anti-Semitic and racist comments.
And in January this year, he mentioned the Russian neo-Nazi group NS/WP (National-Socialism/White Power), which claimed responsibility for the murder of Irina Farion.
What friends say about the 18-year-old
The journalists also spoke to the 18-year-old’s friends. One of them told the Suspilne media that he did not know that his friend had left Dnipro in recent weeks.
“He lives with his mother, he is a very decent guy. He studies well, I would never have thought that he could do such a thing, I’m sure he didn’t do it,” said the suspect’s friend.
And the media of Radio Liberty talked to a neighbour of the suspect’s family with a neighbour of the suspect’s family.
“The child has other goals. He has a healthy lifestyle, is athletic, decent, reads a lot, and is literate. His parents are also very good, decent people,” the woman said.
Family of the suspect in Farion’s murder: what the relatives said
Meanwhile, journalists from Schemes (a project of Radio Liberty) have contacted the suspect’s father with the suspect’s father. He is convinced that his son had no motive to shoot the linguist.
In his commentary, the man said that he was in the military and had not seen his son for a long time, but he regularly spoke to him by phone. He learned about his detention from his wife.
“There were no motives for Farion’s murder, he had no Ukrainophobic views, he was a patriot. On the contrary, he completed a UAV piloting course to join the Ukrainian army and played football,” said the detainee’s father.
He added that “not everything was so ‘smooth’: his wife was kept out of the house, his equipment was taken away, and his son was twisted”.
What’s happening with the “Dnipro shooter” now?
Currently, under the procedural supervision of the Lviv Regional Prosecutor’s Office, the detainee is being served a notice of suspicion of premeditated murder and the issue of choosing a measure of restraint is being decided.
It is worth noting that more information about the suspect in the murder of Irina Farion will be revealed in the near future. At least this was promised by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his evening address on 25 July.
“I have heard the report of the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko on the detention of the suspect in the murder of Iryna Farion. I asked the Minister to provide the public and journalists with all the necessary information,” Zelenskyy said.
The President added that the public would receive full information tomorrow, 26 July.
The murder of Iryna Farion: what you need to know about it
Politician and linguist Iryna Farion was murdered on 19 July. On the street in front of the house where the public figure lived, an unknown person shot her in the temple with a firearm. Farion was hospitalised at St Panteleimon’s Hospital in Lviv. The doctors even managed to perform an operation, but Farion’s heart stopped in intensive care: the wound was incompatible with life.
Neighbours interviewed by the operatives said that the linguist might have been followed recently. People’s attention was drawn to a suspicious guy who had been sitting in the courtyard of the apartment block where the victim lived for several days in a row. People were surprised by the fact that, despite the heat, the young man was wearing a warm, long-sleeved sweatshirt and a hat with a wide brim. The man’s face was masked by black glasses.
The police investigation was complicated by the fact that the shooting, which took the life of a public figure, occurred at a time when there were stabilisation blackouts in the area. Consequently, surveillance cameras were not working. However, the operatives managed to track down the suspect. Security forces detained the alleged shooter on 25 July in a high-rise building in Dnipro. They say that the suspect had been following Farion for at least three weeks in order to track her. To do this, he moved to Lviv, where he changed several rented apartments.
It should be noted that not everyone shares the opinion that the man detained in Dnipro is the only one involved in the murder of Iryna Farion. For example, military analyst and former SBU officer Ivan Stupak said on the air of a national telethon expressed that the suspect could only have been diverting the attention of neighbours and law enforcement officers from the real shooter.
