Not less than six people have been killed in a mass shooting in Kyiv earlier today.
The Moscow-born gunman, 58, also took hostages and barricaded himself in a supermarket where he was later shot and killed by police.
Ukraine’s Security Service said the shooting was being investigated as a terrorist act.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address that the shooting happened within the leafy Holosiivskyi district, injuring 14 people, including a 12-year-old boy.
‘He took hostages and unfortunately, considered one of them was killed,’ Zelensky said.
‘4 people died simply on the road. One woman died in hospital after being seriously wounded.’
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Shootings of this nature are extremely rare in Ukraine.
It’s unclear whether there could also be any link with the continued war with Russia.
Video from the scene showed emergency crews loading no less than one body into an ambulance.
Unofficial Telegram channels quoted witnesses saying the gunman had moved down a street shooting people at point-blank range abruptly before entering the supermarket.
Special tactical units stormed the shop after efforts to interact with a negotiator failed.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko confirmed in a Telegram update: ‘The shooter in Kyiv was liquidated in the course of the arrest.
‘Special forces of the…national police stormed the shop where the attacker was.
‘He took people hostage and shot at a policeman during his detention. Before that, negotiators tried to contact him.’
Chatting with reporters on the scene, Klymenko said that the gunman had killed 4 bystanders while on the road, before entering the supermarket and killing a fifth person.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that a sixth victim, a young woman, died from her injuries within the hospital.
Zelensky later wrote on social media that the shooter was born in Russia and had lived in Ukraine’s eastern city of Donetsk for a ‘very long time’.
He also said that the attacker had set fire to his apartment before going out into the road armed.
Klymenko said the person was carrying a carbine. The short-barrel assault rifle was legally registered, he added.
Last December, the assailant ‘approached the licensing authorities to have the weapon test-fired because the permit was expiring’, he said, adding: ‘He provided a medical certificate. He had also submitted an application to renew his permit for the weapon. That’s all we are able to say for now.’
He added that the investigation will determine which health center issued the certificate.
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