Updated on: April 18, 2026 / 7:19 PM EDT / CBS/AP
A gunman who killed at least six people in Kyiv before taking hostages and barricading himself inside a supermarket on Saturday was shot and killed by police, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukraine’s special tactical police units stormed the store after attempts to contact the attacker with a negotiator failed, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on social media. He said the assailant was killed while resisting arrest.
Klymenko told reporters the shooter, born in 1968, killed four bystanders on the street before entering the supermarket and killing a fifth person there. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a sixth victim, a young woman, died of her injuries in hospital. An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw victims’ bodies on the street covered by emergency blankets before they were removed.
Police negotiators had spoken with the attacker for roughly 40 minutes, Klymenko said. A female negotiator, wearing body armor and standing behind an armored vehicle, used a loudspeaker to urge the gunman to free people and talk. “The people are not to blame for this. Please, let them go and we will talk with you,” she called.
“We tried to persuade him, knowing that there was likely a wounded person inside,” Klymenko said. “We even offered to bring in tourniquets to stop the bleeding, but he did not respond. Consequently, the order was given to neutralize him.”
Klymenko said the man was carrying a carbine — a short-barrel assault rifle that was legally registered. He said the assailant had approached licensing authorities last December to have the weapon test-fired as his permit was expiring, provided a medical certificate and submitted an application to renew the permit. Authorities said the investigation will determine which medical institution issued the certificate.
The shooting occurred in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district. Television footage showed police taking cover in the shopping mall that houses the supermarket while shots were fired and bystanders were escorted away.
The attack came as Russia and Ukraine traded strikes across the region. Local officials reported a civilian killed in Donetsk and at least 26 people wounded in overnight attacks across northern and eastern Ukraine, including a strike on port infrastructure in Odesa.
Russian regional officials reported fires at oil facilities after attacks in several regions. Ukraine’s General Staff said it had struck major oil refineries in Novokuibyshevsk and Syzran in Russia’s Samara region and that strikes had sparked fires at the Vystosk oil terminal in the Leningrad region and an oil refinery in Krasnodar; Russian officials later confirmed some of the blazes. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces destroyed 258 Ukrainian drones overnight over 16 Russian regions, the annexed Crimean peninsula and the Black and Azov seas.