KYIV, Ukraine — A gunman armed with an automatic weapon killed six people, wounded at least 14 and barricaded himself inside a supermarket with hostages in Kyiv on Saturday before police shot and killed him, authorities said.
The 58-year-old attacker, not named by police, was described by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as born in Russia. Zelenskyy said the man had a prior criminal record, had lived in the Donetsk region for a long time and set fire to an apartment before emerging on the street with a weapon. The mass shooting — rare in wartime Kyiv since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion — occurred in the busy Holosiivskyi district outside an apartment block and near a shopping center, leaving bodies on a crowded street as bystanders fled.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw victims’ bodies in the street covered with emergency blankets before they were taken away. Zelenskyy said the assailant had taken hostages and “tragically, killed one of them.” He added the attacker “murdered four people on the street” and another woman later died in hospital, totaling six dead. At least 14 people were wounded and hospitalized.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said special tactical police units stormed the convenience store after negotiators failed to get a response. The hostages were 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. He added that the gunman held a valid weapons permit and that the decision was made to “neutralize him.”
During the roughly 40-minute standoff, a female negotiator in body armor stood behind an armored vehicle and used a loudspeaker, calling, “The people are not to blame for this. Please let them go, and we will talk with you.” Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, described the killings as an act of terrorism.
Residents in the Holosiivskyi district said some recognized the attacker. “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. “He didn’t socialize much with people — just a greeting and he’d be on his way. He lived alone.”
Associated Press journalists Vasilisa Stepanenko and Dan Bashakov in Kyiv, and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, contributed to this report.