Back
Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
"I was prepared not to be caught": the accused in Parubiy's murder Stselnikov recounted details of the attempt and escape
On Thursday at a hearing of the Frankivskyi District Court of Lviv, Mykhailo Stselnikov, accused of murdering former Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy, described how he prepared the assassination attempt on the political figure and how he prepared to flee to Russia; he also handed a letter to media representatives in which he expresses a desire to be sent on an exchange to the Russian Federation.
This was reported by Suspilne Lviv.
It is noted that during questioning, Ulyana Parubiy asked Stselnikov whether anyone had given him information about where Andriy Parubiy lived.
The accused answered no, and added that he knew the deceased lived in a new house on Yefremova. The man also said that before the killing he retrieved a Makarov pistol and two magazines from a cache in the forest. For the murder he used an entire magazine—eight rounds—and buried the rest, about six bullets 9 caliber, along with other ammunition he had, in the forest. He fired two additional rounds earlier when testing the pistol.
"I was preparing that if this pistol didn’t work out, I would simply modify another gun to that caliber. For example, a Flobert pistol. In theory I know how that’s done. Practice would show whether it’s possible or not," he said.
Stselnikov said that after the killing, at around 8-9 o'clock, he picked up an acquaintance’s father-in-law and left with him in his own car from Lviv to the village of Kolodiyivka in Khmelnytskyi region, near the border with Moldova, where his classmate lived.
Ulyana Parubiy asked whether, instead of picking someone up, he hadn’t wanted to leave Lviv’s limits as quickly as possible. Stselnikov replied no. The man added that the trip took about six hours, and that he stopped to eat. He planned to leave Ukraine afterward.
"Every person would probably like to leave quietly. Do you think I really wanted to be caught? I didn’t. Well, that situation happened. I was prepared for that, if anything," the accused said.
He added that he had two separate goals: revenge against the authorities and finding his son. After the killing he planned to go to Russia to do that. "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, whether I won’t, whether I’ll return, whether I won’t, but I wanted to have time to do this (the killing, — ed.) and I had time, I did it," he explained.
Stselnikov also said that unknown people contacted him on the Telegram network. According to him, they promised him money for killing Parubiy, but he refused.
When asked whether the accused had communicated with a representative of the Russian special services, the accused answered that it was 90% yes. When asked who was waiting for him in Russia, Stselnikov answered: "No one."
Meanwhile, in the letter he handed to the media, it says, among other things: "My son, Stselnikov M. M., died 20. 05. 2026 in the city of Bakhmut. I know better than anyone what it means to lose a loved one and to wait for months for any news about a son (...) Therefore I publicly declare my desire to voluntarily go as part of an exchange to the Russian Federation and to save someone’s son’s life."
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "«Я був готовий, щоб мене не спіймали»: обвинувачений у вбивстві Парубія Сцельніков розповів деталі замаху та втечі". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
