At least six people were killed and 15 others wounded after a gunman opened fire on civilians in a busy Kyiv neighbourhood on Saturday, April 18, before taking hostages inside a supermarket and being shot dead by police following a 40-minute standoff in one of the most serious domestic security incidents Ukraine has faced since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Ukraine’s Attorney General Ruslan Kravchenko confirmed the incident is being treated as an act of terrorism. The shooter, killed at the scene, was identified as a 58-year-old man born in Moscow, with authorities working to establish the circumstances of the crime and the motives behind it.
The gunman opened fire on pedestrians in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district, killing four people on the street, before barricading himself inside a Velmart supermarket where he killed a further person and took hostages. A woman who was critically wounded during the attack later died in hospital.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said after 40 minutes during which the shooter made no demands and did not respond to negotiators, special forces from the National Police’s Rapid Response Unit stormed the store. The gunman fired on officers during the operation and was killed. President Volodymyr Zelensky subsequently confirmed that four hostages were successfully rescued.
Among those hospitalised was a boy born in 2015 who sustained gunshot wounds. His father and aunt were killed in the attack, while his mother remained in serious condition.
The attack has triggered an immediate accountability crisis within Ukraine’s police. National Police chief Ivan Vyhivskyi launched an investigation into officers’ conduct after video emerged showing them running from the scene after gunshots were heard. The head of the Kyiv patrol police department, Yevhen Zhukov, subsequently resigned, describing the officers’ behaviour as unprofessional and unworthy of police officers.
Zelensky said the gunman had lived in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region for a long time and had a criminal record. Investigators confirmed that the apartment where he was registered as living was set on fire around the same time as the attack, and are working across several theories regarding motive. Authorities are also examining how a registered automatic weapon came to be used in the assault.
Mass shootings are exceedingly rare in Ukraine despite the large number of weapons held by its citizens, and no such incident had occurred since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.
