Kiev [Ukraine] / Moscow [Russia], April 19: At least six people have been killed and others injured after a person opened fire in Kiev on Saturday, the Ukrainian capital's Mayor Vitali Klitschko has said.
The incident happened in the southern Holosiivskyi district. The man reportedly began shooting at people on the street and then took others hostage in a nearby supermarket.
Ukraine's Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said the attacker was killed in the supermarket following a shoot-out with police. His motive is currently unclear. The exact number of victims also remains unclear, but Klitschko said at least 15 people had been injured. Ten of these, including a child, had been taken to the hospital.
Klitschko said most of the dead had been killed in the street. One woman, thought to be about 30 years old, later died in the hospital. Ukraine's prosecutor general, Ruslan Kravchenko, identified the shooter as a 58-year-old man from the Russian capital, Moscow, and said he had used an automatic weapon to carry out the fatal shooting. Four hostages were later freed, according to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kravchenko also said a fire had broken out in the man's apartment, following unconfirmed reports that he detonated an explosive device. The shooter caused the fire, according to Klitschko.
Meanwhile, an oil depot caught fire in the Russian-occupied city of Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula following a Ukrainian drone attack, authorities said. The fire broke out in a tank containing leftover fuel after drones were shot down, the city's Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram early on Saturday.
The blaze had no impact on Sevastopol's fuel supply, he said, adding that there were no injuries. Air defences shot down two further drones over the city, he added. Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than four years ago. Since then, Ukraine has repeatedly used drones to attack Russian targets, including on the occupied peninsula.
Media also reported that an oil refinery in Russia's south-western Samara region had been struck by drones.
In the Leningrad region, which borders St Petersburg, the port of Vysotsk was also targeted by Ukrainian attacks, Governor Alexander Drozdenko said on Telegram. Efforts were under way to extinguish a fire there, he said, adding that 27 Ukrainian drone attacks had been repelled. Ukraine has recently stepped up attacks on Russia's oil industry amid the Iran war, aiming to reduce Moscow's income from oil exports.
Source: Qatar Tribune