A Ukrainian court on Friday remanded an 18-year-old man in custody over the murder of a nationalist former lawmaker, state media reported.
Iryna Farion – a divisive hardline campaigner against the use of Russian language – was shot near her flat in the western city of Lviv on July 19.
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A Lviv court on Friday ordered the suspect, who gave his name as Vyacheslav Zinchenko, remanded in custody for at least 60 days, the state-run Suspline media outlet reported.
Zinchenko was arrested this week in Dnipro, 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of Lviv.
Investigators said they are working to figure out the motive behind the attack.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that they were inclined to believe that the shooter had acted on orders.
A language professor, Farion had served in Ukraine’s parliament for the ultra-nationalist Svoboda party and become well known for calling out public figures for speaking Russian, instead of Ukrainian.
Russian was widely spoken across Ukraine, particularly in the east, before Moscow invaded in February 2022. Many people have since stopped using Russian and officials have moved to promote wider use of Ukrainian.
Farion was a professor at Lviv’s Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences, specializing in the Ukrainian language, and taught online classes.
She was also a social media blogger and frequently appeared on television.
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She was fired from her academic post last year after students protested comments Farion made in a television interview when she had insulted some military brigades, including the revered Azov unit, for soldiers speaking Russian.
A court later ordered her reinstatement.
Mourners filled the streets of Lviv on Monday for her funeral, heaping flowers at the spot where she was shot, where a blood stain was still visible.
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