Six killed in Kyiv shooting; police kill suspect
A burst of gunfire shattered calm in one of Kyiv’s greenest neighborhoods, ending with Ukrainian police killing a man accused of shooting at pedestrians, seizing hostages inside a supermarket and refusing to negotiate in an attack that left...
A burst of gunfire shattered calm in one of Kyiv’s greenest neighborhoods, ending with Ukrainian police killing a man accused of shooting at pedestrians, seizing hostages inside a supermarket and refusing to negotiate in an attack that left six people dead.
Ukraine’s Security Service said authorities were treating the shooting as a terrorist act.
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In his nightly video address, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the violence unfolded in the leafy Holosiivskyi district, where 14 people were wounded, among them a 12-year-old boy.
“He took hostages and unfortunately, one of them was killed,” Mr Zelensky said.
Such shootings are exceedingly uncommon in Ukraine.
Footage from the scene showed emergency workers placing at least one body into an ambulance.
Witness accounts carried by unofficial Telegram channels said the suspect walked along a street, shooting people at point-blank range without warning, before making his way into the supermarket.
“The shooter in Kyiv was liquidated during the arrest,” Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.
“Special forces of the … national police stormed the store where the attacker was. He took people hostage and shot at a policeman during his detention. Before that, negotiators tried to contact him.”
Speaking to reporters at the scene, Mr Klymenko said officers had spent 40 minutes trying unsuccessfully to negotiate with the suspect.
He said the man legally owned a registered weapon and had obtained a medical certificate permitting its use.
Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said investigators had identified the gunman as a 58-year-old native of Moscow.
Mr Zelensky said the suspect had a criminal record and had set fire to the apartment where he was registered before heading into the street armed with the gun.
The president said the man had lived for a period in the eastern Donetsk region, one of the main flashpoints in the four-year war with Russia.
Mr Kravchenko said the suspect had been carrying an automatic weapon.
He also posted a photo showing a blurred figure lying bloodied inside the store, with a weapon nearby.