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CrimeKyiv, Ukraine

Tragic Shooting in Kyiv: Six Lives Lost and Community in Shock

A gunman opened fire in Kyiv's Holosiivskyi district, leading to six confirmed deaths and multiple injuries, as officials investigate the incident.

Source: bbc.co.uk2 min read
Tragic Shooting in Kyiv: Six Lives Lost and Community in Shock
Image via bbc.co.uk

In brief

On Saturday, a tragic shooting in Kyiv's Holosiivskyi district resulted in at least six fatalities, including a hostage. The attacker also wounded several others before being killed by police during the standoff. The motive remains unclear, and ongoing investigations aim to uncover the circumstances surrounding the shooter's actions and his motivations.

At least six people have been killed and others injured after a person opened fire in Kyiv on Saturday, Ukrainian officials say.

The incident happened in the southern Holosiivskyi district. Ukraine's Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said the man, who lived locally, began shooting at people on the street and then took others hostage in a nearby supermarket.

Klymenko said the attacker was killed in the supermarket following a shoot-out with police. His motive is currently unclear.

The exact number of victims also remains unclear, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 14 people were known to have been injured, including a 12-year-old boy.

He said four people had been killed on the street while a woman, thought to be around 30 years old, died later in hospital. The attacker also killed a hostage.

Police negotiators spoke to the shooter for around 40 minutes while he was in the supermarket, Klymenko said. He described the man as acting chaotically.

We tried to persuade him, realising that there was an injured person there, he explained, adding that the attacker had not made any demands.

We offered to bring in tourniquets to stop the bleeding and so on. But he did not respond, so the order was given to eliminate him, especially after he killed one of the hostages.

Four hostages were then freed, officials said.

Ukraine's prosecutor general, Ruslan Kravchenko, identified the shooter as a 58-year-old man from the Russian capital, Moscow, and said he had used an automatic weapon to carry out the fatal shooting.

The weapon used by the attacker was officially registered, officials said. The circumstances surrounding the issuing of the permit, as well as the shooting itself, are now being investigated.

Zelensky said the shooter had lived in the eastern Donetsk region - which is largely under Russian occupation and was subject to a separatist conflict prior to Moscow's full-scale invasion - for a long time.

He also said that the man had set fire to his apartment before leaving to begin his shooting spree.

While Kyiv is often subject to attacks during the ongoing war with Russia, shootings of this kind are rare in the city.

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