Ukraine launches terror investigation after a gunman killed 7 and took hostages in Kyiv supermarket

By Ivana Kottasová, Daria Tarasova-Markina, Jonny Hallam, CNN

Kyiv (CNN) — Seven people are dead and more than a dozen others were injured after a man opened fire on civilians in a street in Kyiv on Saturday before taking hostages in a supermarket, Ukrainian authorities said.

Ukraine’s Attorney General Ruslan Kravchenko said the incident was being treated as an act of terrorism. The shooter, who was killed by the police at the scene, was identified by authorities as a 58-year-old man born in Moscow.

A senior Kyiv police official said later that he would resign after a video emerged showing officers running away from the scene as shots rang out.

Seven of those injured remain in the hospital, including one injured child, the mayor of Kyiv said in an update on Monday. Four adult victims remain in intensive care.

Authorities are working to establish the circumstances of the crime, as well as the motives behind it, Kravchenko said earlier. Mass shootings are rare in Ukraine.

Kravchenko said the man opened fire on a street in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district, killing four people, before barricading himself inside a supermarket, where he killed another person and took hostages.

According to preliminary reports, the shooter used an automatic weapon that was a registered firearm, Kravchenko said.

Two people shot by the attacker later died in the hospital, according to Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko.

According to Kravchenko, a boy born in 2015 was being treated at a hospital for gunshot wounds. The boy’s father and aunt were killed in the attack. His mother was also injured and was in hospital in serious condition, the director of the Health Department at the Kyiv City State Administration told local media.

Speaking after the incident, a police hostage negotiator told Reuters the attacker was in the Velmart supermarket when she arrived to the scene following an emergency call. She attempted to speak with him but he did not respond. Authorities said the man made no demands.

Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko said after 40 minutes had passed and the shooter had failed to respond, special forces from the National Police’s Rapid Response Unit stormed the store. The gunman fired shots at the police officers during his attempted arrest and was killed, Klymenko said.

“He acted chaotically. He approached every person… he was simply shooting people point-blank,” he said.

Ivan Vyhivskyi, the head of the National Police of Ukraine, said that an investigation into police conduct had been launched after the video emerged showing officers running away from the scene after hearing shots. The officers have been suspended pending the investigation, he said.

The head of the Kyiv patrol police department, Yevhen Zhukov, said Sunday that he was stepping down over the officers’ behavior, which he described as “unprofessional” and “unworthy of police officers.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said four people who were being held hostage by the shooter inside the supermarket had been rescued.

Zelensky said investigators were currently trying to determine everything that can be known about the attacker and why he committed these acts. “Every detail must be examined, investigators are working with several theories,” he said.

Zelensky said the gunman had lived in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region “for a long time” and had a criminal record. It was not immediately clear whether the man was a Ukrainian or Russian citizen.

The apartment where the shooter was registered as living was set on fire around the same time as the attack, according to Kravchenko.

Mass shootings seldom occur in Ukraine, despite the huge number of weapons held by its citizens. There has been no such incident since the start of the full-scale war in 2022, and only a handful in the country’s post-independence history.

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