Back
Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The defendant in the murder of former Verkhovna Rada chairman Andriy Parubiy, Mykhailo Scelnikov, expressed a desire to be sent to the Russian Federation as part of a prisoner exchange.
This was reported by Suspline.
It is noted that before the hearing began at the Ivano-Frankivsk District Court in Lviv, 10, Scelnikov handed an open letter to media representatives stating that he wishes to be sent for exchange.
“My son, Scelnikov M. M., died 20. 05. 2026 in the city of Bakhmut. For me, as no one else knows what it means to lose a loved one and to wait for months for any news about my son (...) Therefore I publicly declare my wish to voluntarily go to exchange in Russia to save another person’s son,” the letter says.
Besides Scelnikov, at the court were present his lawyer Viktor Ponomarenko, prosecutor Taras Kovalchuk, relatives of the murdered Parubiy, and the victims’ lawyer Yuriy Zoshiy. The court continued questioning the defendant.
The wife of the deceased politician, Ulyana Parubiy, asked Scelnikov whether information about where her husband lived had been passed to him. The defendant replied that it had not, and added that he knew the deceased lived in a new house on Yefremova Street. He said that before the murder he took a pistol Makarov and two magazines from a stash in the forest.
“I was preparing; if this pistol didn’t work out, I would simply modify another weapon for this caliber. For example, a Glock pistol. In theory I know how to do it. And practice would show whether it is possible or not,” the defendant stated.
According to Scelnikov, after the murder, at about 8–9 o’clock, he took his son-in-law’s acquaintance and left with him in his own car from Lviv to the village of Kolodiyivka in Khmelnytskyi Oblast, where his classmate lived.
When asked by Ulyana Parubiy if he did not want to, instead of stopping for someone, leave the Lviv area as soon as possible, Scelnikov replied that he did not. He added that the trip lasted about six hours, that he stopped to eat, and that he planned to leave Ukraine afterward.
The defendant stated that he had two goals: revenge against the authorities and finding his son. After the murder he planned to go to Russia to do this.
Answering Ulyana Parubiy’s question about who promised him to cross the border after the murder, Scelnikov said: “I don’t know, it was a Telegram account, it was a nickname.”
Also, Ulyana Parubiy asked Scelnikov how much money he was promised for the murder. The defendant replied that he refused to kill for money. He refused to name the proposed sum and said that “promises varied,” but, in his words, “there is no amount of money that would make me go kill a person for money.”
After that, the victim’s lawyer Yuriy Zoshiy asked Scelnikov whether he was convinced that he spoke with a representative of the Russian special service. The defendant replied that yes, about 90% of the time.
When asked who would meet him in Russia, Scelnikov answered: “Nobody.”
Andriy Parubiy’s father told the court that his son was twice listed in “death lists” compiled by an unknown person. According to him, his son received these messages.
Answering the father’s question about who sent those messages, Scelnikov said, “I did not know your son’s phone number... I simply did not need this.”
The session was adjourned until 30 September.
... 30 August 2025 of the year in Lviv, former Verkhovna Rada chairman and People’s Deputy Andriy Parubiy was shot dead. The assailant fired eight shots. The suspect was detained in Khmelnytskyi Oblast on the night of 1 September.
1 September 2025 of the year the head of the Lviv regional prosecutor’s office signed a notice of suspicion for Lviv resident Mykhailo Scelnikov in the Parubiy murder case.
11 March 2026 of the year the Parubiy murder case was sent to court. 13 July the Ivano-Frankivsk District Court in Lviv extended Scelnikov’s preventive measure — detention without the possibility of bail — for 60 days, until 10 September inclusive.
Photo: Suspline
«Argument»
On this topic:
The defendant confessed to the murder of Parubiy
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Сцельніков розповів, як готував вбивство Парубія та переїзд до Росії". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: argumentua.com.
