Ukraine’s former parliamentary speaker Andriy Parubiy was gunned down Saturday by a madman apparently disguised as a food delivery driver, according to officials and preliminary reports.

Parubiy, 54, was killed around noon local time on the streets of the western city of Lviv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko and Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko have just reported on the first known circumstances of a horrific murder in Lviv. Andriy Parubiy has been killed,” Zelensky wrote on X.

The search for the killer was ongoing, Zelensky added.

Police did not disclose the victim’s name, but confirmed “the deceased is a well-known public and political figure born in 1971.”

Parubiy died at the scene.

The attacker was allegedly dressed as a food delivery driver when he pumped Parubiy with eight bullets before peeling off on an electric bicycle, sources told local outlet Suspline.

Investigators have launched “Operation Siren” to find the mystery murderer.

It’s unclear whether the attack had any ties to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

Parubiy was a member of parliament and had served as parliamentary speaker from April 2016 to August 2019.

He had also served as secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council from February to August 2014, a period when fighting began in eastern Ukraine and Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula and called for closer ties with the European Union.

The killing of Parubiy, a member of the parliamentary committee on national security, defence and intelligence, was “a shot fired at the heart of Ukraine,” former President Petro Poroshenko said on Telegram. 

“Andriy was a great man and a true friend. That is why they take revenge, that is what they are afraid of,” he said, lauding Parubiy’s contribution to building out the Ukrainian army.

With Post Wires