At least 6 killed after gunman opens fire on civilians in Kyiv

Tuesday, April 21, 2026 - At least six people are dead and 15 others have been injured after a man opened fire on civilians in a street in Kyiv over the weekend before taking hostages in a supermarket. 

Ukraine’s Attorney General Ruslan Kravchenko stated that the incident is being treated as an act of terrorism.

The shooter, identified as a 58-year-old man born in Moscow, was killed by police at the scene after a 40-minute standoff.

The gunman began his assault in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district, killing four people on the street before barricading himself inside a Velmart supermarket. Once inside, he killed another person and took several hostages.

According to Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko, the attacker “acted chaotically" and “approached every person… he was simply shooting people point-blank.” President Volodymyr Zelensky later confirmed that four hostages were successfully rescued by special forces during the raid.

The tragedy has left a young boy born in 2015 hospitalized with gunshot wounds; both his father and aunt were killed in the attack, while his mother remains in serious condition. While mass shootings are rare in Ukraine, this incident has sparked a crisis within the police department.

Ivan Vyhivskyi, head of the National Police, launched an investigation into police conduct after a video emerged showing officers running away from the scene. Consequently, Yevhen Zhukov, the head of the Kyiv patrol police department, resigned, describing the officers’ behavior as “unprofessional” and “unworthy of police officers.”

Investigators are currently examining several theories regarding the motive, noting that the gunman had a criminal record and his registered apartment was set on fire around the same time as the attack.

Zelensky emphasized that “every detail must be examined” to understand why the shooter, who had lived in the eastern Donetsk region for a long time, committed these acts. Although mass shootings are uncommon in the country's post-independence history, authorities are working to establish how a registered automatic weapon was used in this lethal assault.