Muzychko, also known as Sashko Bilyi, was located Monday near a cafe in the western Ukrainian city of Rovno in an operation launched by special forces to neutralize a suspected militant group.
Muzychko, an activist in Ukraine’s radical Right Sector party, opened fire on law enforcement, injuring one of the officers before being killed by return fire, according to First Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Yevdokimov.
Doctors confirmed Muzychko’s death,” the first deputy interior minister said.
The Ukrainian UNIAN news agency reported that three other suspected gunmen were detained during the operation.
Muzychko was put on an international wanted list on suspicion of torturing and murdering at least 20 Russian servicemen in Chechnya in the early 2000s. He was tried in absentia by a court in southern Russia earlier this month.
Right Sector is a major ally of the neo-Nazi Svoboda party led by Oleh Tyahnybok, a member of the new Ukrainian government and an active promoter of the ideas of Stepan Bandera. Bandera, a Ukrainian who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II, was involved in mass atrocities in the wartime ethnic cleansing of Poles, Jews and Russians.
