A teenager has been arrested for murdering former member of the Ukrainian Parliament Iryna Farion

An 18-year-old teenager has been arrested in southeastern Ukraine for allegedly shooting and killing Iryna Farion, a former member of parliament and linguistics professor.

The teenager was searched for in Dnipro, more than 900km (550 miles) from the western city of Lviv where the attack took place, after a manhunt for the murder involving a large team of investigators.

Farion, 60, is well known in Ukraine for causing a stir last year when he said that real Ukrainians should not speak Russian under any circumstances because it was the language of an “aggressive country”.

He was expelled from the university after being accused of inciting hatred, before being reinstated by a court in Lviv this year.

His killing was considered premeditated and although CCTV cameras failed to capture the incident outside his home, it is reported that they captured a picture of the suspect, who was described as a young man with a thin body.

Farion’s funeral drew a large crowd on Monday in Lviv. He was a Member of Parliament for two years until 2014, appearing regularly on TV and his YouTube blog has attracted over 300,000 subscribers.

The cause of the attack was not yet clear and President Volodymyr Zelensky said that investigators were considering all possible questions, including the possible role of Russia in the murder.

Another report suggested that a neo-Nazi group with ties to Russia might be involved and a member of the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party said that whoever fired the shots had taken orders from Russia.

There was no indication of Russian involvement, although pro-Kremlin broadcaster Margarita Simonyan revealed on social media that Farion wanted the “complete extermination” of Russian-speaking Ukrainians and was also expelled.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Thursday that the young suspect was being held in his home in Dnipro, adding that he had rented at least three apartments in Lviv before the shooting.

Another local website identified the suspect as a young soccer player who had participated in a tournament last month.

The interior minister praised the “continuous work of 139 hours” carried out by investigators and crime experts who carefully examined the shooter’s escape and 100 hectares of forest.

In a statement to the Telegram messaging service, Mr Klymenko said the investigation was “inclined to believe that the shooter is only a criminal,” indicating that he may have been coordinated by others.

The suspect’s father told Radio Liberty that he was on the run and had not seen his son for some time.

However, he said that this young man has no anti-Ukraine views and is a patriot who has completed studies preparing to join the army.