Death of Andriy Parubiy in Lviv seen as part of a covert campaign of hits and car bombs waged by Moscow and Kyiv
Dressed all in black and wearing a yellow helmet, the man on the bike looked like just another food delivery driver, one of hundreds crisscrossing the city of Lviv with a big yellow box on his back.
This courier had no meals to deliver, however. Instead, he lurked on a quiet side street, waiting for a balding 54-year-old with cropped grey hair at the sides and black-rimmed spectacles to appear.
The man on the bike had studied the target’s movements over previous weeks, and was expecting him to emerge from his apartment building onto the street and head to the gym. When he did, the fake courier approached from behind, took out a pistol, and fired eight times before fleeing.
The 30 August killing, many believe, was the latest in a series of assassinations in Ukraine and Russia, part of a shadow war between the two countries carried out by warring security services and their accomplices on the ground. It has so far involved execution-style shootings, car bombs and, in one case, even an exploding scooter.
