Murdered MP Andriy Parubiy and 3 other Ukrainians were awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine posthumously

On October 1, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed decrees awarding the title of Hero of Ukraine posthumously to Andriy Parubiy and three other famous Ukrainians.

The decrees were published on the presidentʼs website.

"For outstanding personal merits in the establishment of independent Ukraine and the strengthening of its statehood, and many years of political and public activity, I decide to confer the title of Hero of Ukraine with the award of the Order of the State to Andriy Volodymyrovych Parubiy, the MP of Ukraine (posthumously)," the document states.

Read more about the murder of a Ukrainian politician in the news below.

In addition, three more Ukrainians were awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine (posthumously):

• Hennadii Afanasyev — activist of civil resistance to the Russian occupation of Crimea, political prisoner, publicist, military officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. One of the illegally accused in the case of the so-called terrorists of the “Sentsov” group. Died in 2022 near Bilohorivka in the Luhansk region;

• Volodymyr Vakulenko is a childrenʼs writer who was killed by the occupiers in May 2022 during the occupation of Izyum, Kharkiv region;

• Stepan Chubenko is a schoolboy who was tortured and shot by pro-Russian militants in the temporarily occupied Donetsk region in 2014. Babel told about the trial of the teenagerʼs killers, which took place in the occupied territories 11 years after his execution, and how Stepanʼs parents live after the full-scale invasion.

The murder of Andriy Parubiy

Former Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada and the MP from the "European Solidarity" party Andriy Parubiy was killed in Lviv on August 30, 2025. The shooting occurred in the Frankivsk district of the city. As a result of the injuries received, Parubiy died on the spot.

At midnight on September 1, 36 hours after the murder, law enforcement officials announced that they had detained a suspect in the murder in the Khmelnytskyi region. They say that the crime was carefully prepared: the deceasedʼs travel schedule was studied, a route was laid, and an escape plan was thought out. The suspect is 52-year-old Lviv resident Mykhailo Stelnikov.

On the morning of September 1, Stelnikov was informed of the suspicion, and on September 2, the case was reclassified: he is now suspected under Art. 112 and Part 1 of Art. 263 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. He faces life imprisonment.

On September 2, the court sent Stelnikov to two months of arrest without bail. Mykhailo himself confessed to the murder in a conversation with journalists. Commenting on the motives for the murder, Stelnikov stated that it was “his personal revenge on the Ukrainian authorities”.

There was information in the media that he committed this murder on the orders of the Russian special services, who in return promised the man to return the body of his son who died in the war. Stelnikov denied this information.

At its meeting on September 18, the Verkhovna Rada supported the appeal to the president to award the title of Hero of Ukraine to Andriy Parubiy.

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