Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said he believes that the murder of lawyer Iryna Nozdrovska is a challenge to the state and a test for society in terms of protecting women activists.

"We have a better situation with female congresses, but not with domestic violence and the role of women in politics. The murder of Nozdrovska is a challenge to the state and a test for society on the ability to protect women activists, justice in general and the ability to ensure it," he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

Human rights activist and lawyer Nozdrovska disappeared at the end of 2017 and was found dead in a river in Vyshgorod district, Kyiv region, on January 1. Her body was sent to a forensic medical examination. The police have opened a criminal proceeding on counts of deliberate murder.

Bloc of Petro Poroshenko MP Mustafa Nayyem said that it was about Nozdrovska, who for a long time sought a verdict for the murderer of her sister, Svitlana, who was killed in a road accident in September 2015.

"The woman was knocked down by a drunk driver, the nephew of the chairman of Vyshgorod District Court, Dmytro Rossoshansky. Despite the obvious nature of the crime, relatives sought justice for more than two years. Lawyer Iryna Nozdrovska personally oversaw the case, spoke in court, and due to this she repeatedly received threats from the defendant and his relatives," he wrote on his Facebook page.

"In June last year, she managed to achieve justice. Rossoshansky was sentenced to seven years in prison. On December 27, the court heard an appeal. The court rejected an appeal lodged by the killer's lawyers, sent the case to a trial court and extended the defendant's arrest for 60 days. The father of the accused threatened Iryna: 'You will end badly.' And two days later, on Friday, December 29, Iryna disappeared," Nayyem said.

Vitaliy Serheyev, a former fiance of Nozdrovska, was interrogated as a witness as part of the investigation. According to him, he last saw Nozdrovska in August 2017.