Kyiv —
At least six people were killed and several more injured in a rare shooting incident in which a man opened fire on civilians on the streets of Kyiv and then took hostages at a supermarket, Ukrainian authorities said on Saturday.
Ukraine’s Attorney General Ruslan Kravchenko identified the gunman as a 58-year-old Moscow native, who also died. Authorities are investigating the motive for the attack.
Kravchenko said the man opened fire on the street in Kyiv’s Khoroshiivsky district, killing four people. He then barricaded himself in a supermarket, where he killed another person and took hostages. Kravchenko said preliminary reports indicate the gunman used an automatic weapon.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said another person shot by the gunman died in hospital, nine others were being treated in hospital and six were being treated by doctors at the scene.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klimenko said police negotiators made contact with the man and spoke with him for 40 minutes.
Special forces from the National Police Rapid Reaction Force then raided the store. Klimenko said the suspect shot at police officers during the arrest, killing him.
Kravchenko said the apartment building where the gunman was registered as a resident was set on fire around the same time as the attack.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced that four hostages taken in a mass shooting at a supermarket have been rescued.
Despite Ukraine’s vast arsenal of weapons, mass shootings are rare. There have been no such incidents since the start of all-out war in 2022, and only a few in the history of independent Ukraine.
