A shooter from Holosiivskyi recorded the events on a voice recorder during the attack
The shooting in the Holosiivskyi district of Kyiv on 18 April stemmed from a long-standing domestic dispute between neighbours. This was revealed by Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko during a meeting with media representatives.
According to him, the gunman lived on the fifth floor and had a dispute with a neighbour who lived one floor above. On the day of the incident, another argument broke out between them.
After the attacker was neutralised, law enforcement officers seized his phone and established that he had been recording his actions on a voice recorder. This allowed them to reconstruct the events minute by minute.
“He was constantly muttering something. It is very difficult to understand what he was saying. It was a jumble of words that couldn’t possibly make any sense,” said Ihor Klymenko.
According to him, the gunman mentioned a neighbour whom he called ‘the director’, and this annoyed him.
The man fired the first shots near the entrance using a non-lethal weapon. After that, he returned to the flat, took a carbine, set the flat alight and went out onto the street. All the while, he continued the audio recording.
The minister suggested that the man might have been recording the conflict to document his side of the story. “He was recording this row so that he wouldn’t be blamed later in court or by the police. But he ‘lost it’ – you can hear that on the recording,” noted Klymenko.
According to law enforcement, the gunman had a registered carbine. During the attack, he shot four people on the street and another inside the shop where he was holding hostages.
The attacker subsequently took hostages in the shop and opened fire on police officers during his arrest. After attempts at negotiation, he was shot dead.
Investigators from the Security Service of Ukraine have classified the incident as a terrorist act.
Initial reports indicated six dead and 14 wounded. On 20 April, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko stated that the death toll had risen to seven following the death of one of the wounded in hospital.
The Office of the Prosecutor General reported that the gunman was a native of Moscow.
Following the incident, two officers from the Kyiv Patrol Police Department were charged with dereliction of duty during the attack. The head of the Patrol Police Department, Yevhen Zhukov, submitted his resignation.
As reported by ThePublic, Oleksandr Fatsievych will temporarily head the patrol police following the events in Kyiv.
ThePublic has analysed how the patrol police force has developed and why the reform, which began with a high level of public trust, has found itself at the centre of the biggest scandal in its entire history.
