2026 Kyiv shooting

At 4:32 p.m., police received a call about a dispute between neighbours, which prosecutor general Ruslan Kravchenko attributed to a dispute over an intercom that Vasylchenkov had repaired that was not allowing residents to enter the building, in the Demiivka area of Kyiv's Holosiivskyi District. Vasylchenkov was initially armed with a rubber bullet pistol and fired shots with it at a neighbour. Vasylchenkov then armed himself with the carbine he used in the attack and shot a man, a woman, and a young boy. Two police officers, who were aware that a shooting had taken place, arrived on the scene after Vasylchenkov went back into his apartment and set it on fire. The young boy asked the police officers to treat his father, and then Vasylchenkov emerged from his apartment and opened fire on the wounded victims, the police, and other people in the vicinity, but selectively warned certain people to run away. Approximately ten minutes after leaving his apartment, Vasylchenkov entered a supermarket, where he threatened people inside and shot an employee. Five other people were injured by gunfire in the supermarket. After taking hostages, Vasylchenkov demanded that a woman who worked for a currency exchange office leave and call her representatives for negotiations, but said that he was not interested in money. Vasylchenkov attempted to justify his actions by claiming that he had been jumped by four people near the entrance of the supermarket, reflecting on his military experience, and said that he "couldn’t take it any more". Vasylchenkov also commented about the murder of one of his neighbours, saying that "He’s already a corpse; his brains are spilling out". One hostage was killed during the standoff and the four remaining hostages were successfully rescued by the police. == Victims ==

Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, initially said that six people were killed, including the gunman, and 15 others were injured, but a woman who was critically injured later succumbed to her injuries. Among the injured were a 12-year-old child and a 4-month-old child, the latter who lived in a neighbouring apartment to Vasylchenkov and suffered carbon monoxide poisoning from the fire. Eight people remained hospitalized the following day. On 20 April, Klitschko reported that a critically injured man died from his injuries, raising the death toll of victims to seven and that four of the injured remained in intensive care. One of the murdered victims was identified as Igor Savchenko, a guitarist for the rock band "Druhe Sontse". The critically injured man who died two days after the attack was identified as 72-year-old Oleksandr Hryhorovych, and he was credited with shielding a wounded boy with his body before he was shot. == Perpetrator ==

The shooter was identified as 57-year-old Dmytro Vasyliovych Vasylchenkov (; 21 April 1968 – 18 April 2026), a Ukrainian citizen born in Moscow, Russia. Vasylchenkov served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine from 1992 to 2005 as a motor transport soldier primarily in Odesa Oblast, after which he retired with the rank of major. The Guardian cited reports saying he had made anti-Ukrainian and antisemitic posts on social media, wishing that Russia had captured Bakhmut earlier, denying Ukraine's right to exist, and fantasizing about ethnically cleansing society via the methods of Adolf Hitler. == Aftermath ==

Two Kyiv police officers were suspended after a video allegedly showed them fleeing from Vasylchenkov rather than confronting him as they were among a group of civilians. Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko described the actions of the police as "shameful" and "unworthy behavior", and wrote that an investigation into them was underway. However, Klymenko also wrote that it was "not entirely correct to make generalisations about the entire police only by the actions of two employees". The head of Ukraine's Patrol Police, Yevhen Zhukov, resigned in response to the video, stating that he believed it was "fair" due to the "shameful" actions of the police officers. On 20 April, prosecutor general Ruslan Kravchenko said that the two police officers had been charged with official negligence, a charge which could see them face up to five years in prison. The State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) said that the police officers were aware that there was an armed man and a threat to people's lives when they arrived on scene, and that they failed to use their service weapons to confront Vasylchenkov and instead fled from him. The SBI also said that investigators had requested a court to order pre-trial detention for the two police officers. A petition launched on 23 April to honor one of the murdered victims, Oleksandr Hryhorovych, reached the required 6,000 signatures by 27 April to be considered by the Kyiv City Council. The author of the petition requested that the city install a memorial sculpture or plaque at the location of the shooting, a posthumous awarding of a city distinction to Hryhorovych, and an official public commemoration of his actions by the city. == Investigation ==

The Security Service of Ukraine said that it was investigating the attack as an act of terrorism. Klymenko also said that the attacker's mental state had been "clearly unstable" and said the investigation would include how he had obtained the medical certification needed to renew his firearms license. Klymenko disclosed on 20 April that Vasylchenkov recorded his voice during the attack, and that investigators were having trouble discerning what he said. Klymenko said that Vasylchenkov had a habit of recording himself speaking to people and sometimes of him talking to himself. Law enforcement attributed his collection of recordings to a plan by Vasylchenkov to prove his "innocence" in the case of a trial against him because of an ongoing dispute with his neighbour, and that it was possible that when Vasylchenkov retrieved the firearm used in the attack, he had not initially planned on opening fire with it. Prosecutor general Ruslan Kravchenko later said that the attack was premeditated, saying that investigators had recovered videos from Vasylchenkov's mobile phone in which he had recorded himself doing target practice accompanied by aggressive monologues where he called people "pigs" that he "would slaughter", used anti-Ukrainian language, and gave Nazi salutes and promoted ideologically motivated violence. == Reactions ==

President Zelenskyy said that he expected "a swift investigation" into the shooting by authorities. The event spurred widespread public outcry over the level of training of the National Police of Ukraine. Klymenko criticized the actions of the two initial officers first to arrive on the call, denouncing them as "shameful;" he was swift to state however that these actions should not be seen as representative of the entire Ukrainian policing system, highlighting the actions of the Rapid Operational Response Unit (KORD) officers who neutralized the shooter. On April 19, the Verkhovna Rada began petitioning for the resignation of Yevhenii Zhukov, the head of the country's Patrol Police; on the same day, he announced his resignation. Two days later, on April 21, he was appointed as an advisor to the chief of the National Police of Ukraine, Ivan Vyhivskyi. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has initiated changes to combat training for officers in response, including having training done by combat-experienced military personnel. Member of the Verkhovna Rada and deputy head of the Law Enforcement Committee, , said that the conversation around the shooting was "very emotional" because Ukrainians were "not used to this happening here". Osadchuk also said that Ukrainian society and its institutions were not prepared to create an "effective system with access to firearms" due to a lack of institutional capacity and that the shooting highlighted "that even legally obtained weapons can end up in the hands of people who are not just unstable, but mentally ill". The head of the , Heorhii Uchaikin, said that he was afraid of another mass shooting happening in Ukraine and that what scared him most was "that people will once again be defenseless" and that it didn't matter if the weapon used to attack someone was legal or illegal, but rather if "you have the ability to defend yourself". Uchaikin also called for a law to permit civilians to carry handguns, saying that without legislation to do so, people would turn to the black market and fuel the uncontrollable spread of illegal weapons. == See also ==