Parubiy's Murder: The Defendant Described How He Prepared the Assassination and Planned His Escape to Russia
On Thursday, during a hearing at the Frankivsk District Court in Lviv, Mykhailo Stselnikov, who is accused of murdering former Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andriy Parubiy, described the preparations for the assassination attempt and his plan to flee to Russia.
He also handed a letter to media representatives in which he expressed his desire to be sent to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange.
It is noted that during questioning, Ulyana Parubiy asked Stselnikov whether he had been given information about where Andriy Parubiy lived.
The defendant replied that he had not, adding that he knew the victim lived in a new house on Yefremova Street. He also stated that before the murder, he had retrieved a Makarov pistol and two magazines from a hiding place in the forest. He used the entire magazine—eight rounds—for the murder, and buried the rest—approximately six 9-caliber bullets, as well as other ammunition he had—in the forest. He had fired two more rounds earlier while testing the pistol.
“I was prepared—if it hadn’t worked out with this pistol, I would have simply modified another weapon to fit this caliber. For example, a Flobert pistol. In theory, I know how to do it. But practice would have shown whether it was possible or not,” he said.
Stselnikov said that after the murder, at around 8 or 9 a.m., he picked up his friend’s father-in-law and drove with him in his own car from Lviv to the village of Kolodiyivka in the Khmelnytskyi region, near the border with Moldova, where his classmate lived.
Ulyana Parubiy asked if, instead of stopping to pick someone up, he hadn’t wanted to leave Lviv as quickly as possible. To this, Stselnikov replied that he hadn’t. He added that the trip took about six hours, during which he stopped to eat. He planned to leave Ukraine afterward.
“I’m sure everyone would prefer to leave peacefully. Do you think I really wanted to get caught? I didn’t. Well, this situation happened. I was prepared for that, just in case,” the defendant said.
He added that he had two separate goals: revenge against the authorities and finding his son. After the murder, he planned to go to Russia to do so. “But I also understood that if I left—you know what times these are. I don’t know what will happen to me: whether I’ll leave or not, whether I’ll return or not, but I wanted to get this (the murder—ed.) done in time, and I did,” the man explained.
Stselnikov also said that unknown individuals had contacted him via the Telegram messaging app. According to him, he was promised money for Parubiy’s murder, but he refused.
When asked whether the defendant had communicated with a representative of the Russian Federation’s special services, he replied that it was 90% likely. When asked who was waiting for him in the Russian Federation, Stselnikov replied, “No one.”
At the same time, a letter he provided to the media states, in part: “My son, M. M. Stselnikov, was killed on May 20, 2026, in the city of Bakhmut. I know better than anyone what it means to lose a loved one and wait for months for any news about my son (...) Therefore, I publicly declare my desire to voluntarily travel to the Russian Federation as part of a prisoner exchange and save the life of someone’s son.”
This was reported by “Suspilne Lviv.”
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The family of the murdered Parubiy is seeking 15 million hryvnias in moral damages.
As a reminder, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has referred the case of Andriy Parubiy’s murder to court.
On August 30, 2025, the National Police reported that Andriy Parubiy, a well-known Ukrainian public and political figure, had been killed in Lviv.
