Mother of Farion murder suspect assures that she did not recognise her son in the photo

“At first I looked closely. And then I just listened to the witnesses who spoke there. They talked about 2-3 weeks (that’s how long, according to witnesses, the suspicious guy appeared near the house where Farion lived. - Ed.). This is the first thing I thought about. I thought that this couldn’t be the case. Well, I analyzed it later, too, they weren’t talking about my son. And they also talked about a gap of 10 cm. That is, you know, this is such a big difference, but it still didn’t hit... And I was sure it wasn’t him,” noted Olena Zinchenko.

She added that after the police showed the first photo of the suspect, she called her son - but not because she suspected that he might be involved in the crime, but because she believed that he might attract the attention of law enforcement officers due to his age.

“When he was driving back, I also watched the news that an interception plan had already been introduced. And I called him. I was busy because I understood that they could detain all the guys there who were so young,” the woman said.

Olena Zinchenko also assures that she never heard a word about Farion from her son, and only learned about the linguist’s uncompromising position on the issue of the Ukrainian language and his harsh expressions after the murder. According to the woman, the language issue has never been an issue in their family, her son speaks the state language perfectly - and helped his mother overcome the language barrier, correcting mistakes that she made in communicating in Ukrainian.

"He wanted to become a military man. In March, he completed courses to become a UAV operator, that is, he wanted to continue to go to the state. My husband is also fighting. And he also wanted to go to war. He supported the military and he himself was looking for where to go. But my his husband and some of his friends refused. He had just turned 18, and he already... wanted to volunteer.