Eight victims of a deadly shooting rampage in Ukraine’s capital are still receiving hospital treatment, including a child who lost both parents in the attack, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
The violence erupted Saturday when a gunman of Russian origin used an automatic weapon to fire on pedestrians before taking refuge in a grocery store with hostages. Law enforcement officers killed the shooter after a 40-minute standoff failed to produce a peaceful resolution.
Among those still hospitalized, the orphaned child is listed in moderate condition while one adult victim remains in critical condition, Klitschko reported. The mayor confirmed that six people died in the attack, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said wounded a total of 14 individuals.
“They are all receiving all necessary medical care,” the mayor said on Telegram.
The grocery store where the standoff occurred remains shuttered and surrounded by police barriers. Bullet damage is clearly visible in the store’s windows, while bloodstains mark the surrounding sidewalks and street surfaces.
Memorial flowers have been placed near an apartment building several hundred yards from the store, marking the location where the gunman’s shooting spree began.
Local resident Daryna, 31, witnessed the chaos as it unfolded. “I saw how people grabbed children from the playground and ran away. They screamed: ‘run away, hide.’ People didn’t understand what was going on. They said that there was a man there, a man was shooting with a machine gun,” she told Reuters.
A 73-year-old neighborhood resident who observed the gunman described his appearance as deceptively normal. “I don’t want to clear him of blame or anything like that… but he didn’t look like a killer,” the pensioner said, adding that the shooter “looked kind of smart.”
Such mass shooting incidents are virtually unheard of in Ukraine, prompting the country’s security services to classify the case as an act of terrorism. Investigators have not yet determined what motivated the deadly attack.
