Kyiv: At least six people were killed and several others injured after a gunman, wielding an automatic weapon, stormed a supermarket in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Saturday.
The assailant barricaded himself inside with hostages, before being shot and killed by the police, authorities said. At least 14 people were wounded and taken to hospital.
The police did not name the 58-year-old attacker, but Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was born in Russia. Authorities are working to piece together a motive for the violence.
The mass shooting – unheard of in wartime Kyiv following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – took place in a busy central district of the city, outside an apartment block and a nearby shopping centre, leaving bodies on a crowded street as bystanders fled for safety, as reported by The Telegraph.
Bodies lay on the street, covered with emergency blankets, before being taken away, an Associated Press reporter said.
“The assailant has been neutralised. He had taken hostages and, tragically, killed one of them. He also murdered four people on the street. Another woman died in the hospital due to severe injuries,” Zelenskyy said.
“It has been established that the attacker set fire to an apartment before taking to the streets with a weapon,” the Ukrainian president added.
“He had a prior criminal record, had lived in the Donetsk region (in eastern Ukraine) for a long period, and was born in Russia,” Zelenskyy further said.
According to the country’s interior minister Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s special tactical police units stormed the convenience store after attempts to contact the gunman with a negotiator failed.
The hostages were supermarket customers and staff.
“We tried to persuade him, knowing that there was likely a wounded person inside. We even offered to bring in tourniquets to stop the bleeding, but he did not respond,” Klymenko said. “Consequently, the order was given to neutralise him.”
The gunman had a valid weapon’s permit, the minister said.
A female negotiator, wearing body armour and standing behind an armoured vehicle, used a loudspeaker to call out to the assailant during the 40-minute standoff.
“The people are not to blame for this. Please let them go, and we will talk with you,” she urged.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s security service, or SBU, described the killings as an act of terrorism.
The shooting took place in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district, where several residents said they recognized the gunman.
“I knew him by sight. He seemed like an educated, refined man. You’d never guess he was some kind of criminal,” said 75-year-old Hanna Kulyk, who lived in the same apartment block as the attacker.
“He didn’t socialise much with people – just a greeting and he’d be on his way,” she said. “He lived alone.”
