Recently, Ukrainian society was stirred up by the murder of the head of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 2016-2019 Andrei Parubia. At the same time, over the past decade there have been many murders and attempts on Ukrainian politicians, activists, journalists. Is there anything in common between them? In my opinion, some of these episodes can combine events on May 2, 2014 in Odessa, when 48 people died due to clashes and fire in the house of trade unions. This is a painful and complex page of our history, which for Russia has become a convenient myth created on blood and suffering. I believe that revenge on May 2 from the Russian government is a version that cannot be ignored.
Moscow especially speculates and parasitizes on two topics - Maidan and events of May 2. As for the latter, Russian propagandists promoted the narrative of the Odessa Khatyn for years - a symbol that the Kremlin uses to mobilize support for its aggression and justify crimes against Ukraine. And finally, they moved from abstract accusations to specific names. It is important to understand here that for the Russian government the ideological struggle for Odessa continues.
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In the plots of Russian media, Ukrainian politicians and activists are called, whom Moscow stigmatized as organizers and participants in the events of May 2. A special place among them was occupied by Andrei Parubiy, who in May 2014 served as secretary of the National Security and Defense Council and was in Odessa on the eve of the tragedy. His name became one of the main symbols of the " For example, in 2014, Russian propagandists actively distributed a statement by the former deputy chief of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in the Odessa region Dmitry Fuchezhi (which at that time had already escaped in the Russian Federation) on the air of the Russian NTV channel, where he called Andrei Parubia one of the main culprits of the tragedy on May 2.
This context gives a new sound of Vladimir Putin’s words, said on February 21, 2022, a few days before the start of a full -scale invasion: “We know them by name and do everything to punish”. Then this phrase seemed another propaganda threat, but today it can be perceived as a sentence, the key to understanding a series of attempts and murders that have occurred in Ukraine over the past decade.
Attempts and murders: Logic instead of accidents.
The events of recent years demonstrate that in a series of attacks on politicians, activists and journalists who occurred in Ukraine, a pattern is visible. Let us recall several stories of attempts and murders, which, in my opinion, can be associated precisely with the events of May 2. I remember some of them since it was the prosecutor of the city of Odessa. For example, an attempt on the then leader of the Odessa Maidan Andrei Yusov in 2014, when explosives wounded a neighbor near his apartment. It turned out to be just the beginning, after which a number of attacks occurred.
Odessa activist and founder of the Nebayduzhі movement, Mark Gordienko, became the target of at least three attempts, in particular, attempts to blow up his motorcycle. Demyan Gaval, an activist of the Odessa Resistance, known for the struggle against pro -Russian networks, was killed in March 2025 in Odessa - long before that he was arrested in absentia by the Basmanny Court of Moscow. People's Deputy Alexei Goncharenko, who from the very beginning of Russian aggression openly opposed her, was repeatedly at the sight: at least three attempts to kill and abduction were prepared. He was also convicted by the second Western District Military Court of Moscow. At least two attempts were made on the Odessa public activist Todor Panovsky: in 2015, unknown people shot him near his house. And in 2025, the Ukrainian special services managed to prevent another attempt at his physical destruction in Kyiv. By the way, he was also condemned in absentia by the Basmanny Court of Moscow. Several attempts were made on a volunteer and blogger Sergei Sternenko, who was a direct participant in the events of May 2 on the Kulikovo Field in Odessa. The last of them occurred on May 1, 2025 in Kyiv, when he was injured during the attack, which, according to the SBU, was organized by Russian special services.
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All these people are directly or indirectly related to the events of May 2. So attacks on them are difficult to consider as separate episodes. In 2015, the SBU detained a group of militants from whom they seized a “shot list”, dedicated to the anniversary of events in the house of trade unions. This list was all the same names indicated above, which had been in the Kremlin air for years, and these people later became objects of attacks. In 2017, during a large exchange of “all for all”, among the exchanged ones were those who were suspected of attempts on Goncharenko and Gordienko. That is, the Russian side wanted to exchange them, which confirms the version of the Russian trace.
And already in 2018, the Odessa District Court sentenced the organizers of the so -called OHR - Igor Yankovsky, Alexander Lutsenko and Viktor Zhukovsky. They were tried not only for trying to create a “republic”, but also for preparing an attempt on Goncharenko, but it was this episode that later they removed from the sentence. And it looked like a political compromise. Moreover, thanks to the “Savchenko Law”, all of them were released almost immediately after the announcement of the sentence, which looked like a mockery against the backdrop of the threat of an approaching full -scale aggression and the dominance of Russian agents in Ukraine.
Legal qualification: more than local crimes.
Today, the majority of things about these attacks and murders are investigated separately. Such fragmentation plays into the hands of those who want to hide real customers. But it is precisely the hypothesis of “revenge for May 2” that should become a priority working version for these investigations. It cannot be ignored, because propaganda and statements of the Kremlin directly indicate a possible motive. Not to respond to these signals means to allow new tragedies.
From this point of view, it is important to take into account the decision of the ECHR about the events of May 2. The court, among other things, noted a significant impact of Russian misinformation and propaganda on fingering enmity before tragic events. And he confirmed that the key involved officials escaped to Russia over time and received citizenship there, which indicates their long -standing ties. The court also took into account the complexity of circumstances for the newly formed government of Ukraine, which inherited by power structures, impressed by agents of influence.
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So it is necessary to change the approach to investigations, combining the efforts of law enforcement agencies and creating a joint interagency investigative group. It is important to investigate systematicity: compare the production, handwriting of performers, methods, communications, financing, analyze the information field. This can show that all episodes are part of one campaign. Only such a step will allow you to see a complete picture - from the formation of propaganda narratives to compiling a list of targets and coordination of attempts.
Analyzing all these episodes, it is difficult to deny their political nature. These are not only individual attempts on the lives of Ukrainian citizens, but also an element of a hybrid war aimed at undermining the constitutional system and destabilization of Ukraine. Employment and murders can also be considered in an international legal context, because they took place during the international armed conflict, which gives them signs of potential international crimes.
As I used to say, recruited citizens often became performers, mainly from vulnerable social groups - people with debts, personal tragedies. They were misleading, introducing themselves to the "
The organizers were Russian special services acting through intermediaries and false covers, using a wide range of recruitment methods. And it cannot be ruled out that attempts to repeat will repeat. So today the version of " On the contrary, more and more facts indicate that this event became not only a propaganda tool, but also the basis for real operations.
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We need to create a unified register of attempts and attempts to attempts starting in 2014 and the analytical center, which will work ahead of the Kremlin narratives and “lists of enemies”. This will help to identify the repetition of such schemes and intermediaries. After all, the protection of those whom Moscow considers targets should become a priority. These people are at high risk, and timely actions can prevent new attacks. This may include the state security program, monitoring suspicious contacts and communication channels, personal security training.
Odessa remains a pain point in the war for meanings, and while every attempt, every death and each abduction is considered as a separate story, it is difficult for us to see a complete picture. In addition, because of this, we lose the opportunity to identify the highest level of suspects and guilty of these crimes, and not just performers. Only if we collect all the evidence together and analyze them, we can understand that each attack can be a strategy for destroying Ukrainian symbols of resistance.
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