Russian soldier arrested after killing three civilians and one colleague in Crimea

independent.co.uk

A Russian soldier in Crimea opened fire and killed four people – one colleague and three civilians – in an apparent random gun rampage.

The solider first opened fire on his colleagues, killing one and wounding another.

An official said the solider then turned his weapon on civilians, killing three, in the village of Khmelnytske.

According to the BBC, the victims were two men, aged 71 and 59, and a 64-year-old woman.

Three other people were wounded, said Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of the Sevastopol region. He said the attacker had been arrested.

There was no information on the motive for the attacks.

Pedestrians walk past a mural depicting the Russian Patriotic Youth movement Yunarmiya (L) and a statue of Lenin in Kerch, on the Russian-annexed peninsula of Crimea (AFP/Getty)

“All circumstances and causes of the incident are being established,” said Razvozhayev, urging people to remain calm and not to spread rumours.

Razvozhayev said medical staff were “doing everything possible to save” those injured. And it is not yet clear whether the death toll was expected to rise.

Crimea is a strategic and heavily militarised peninsula on the Black Sea, which Russia seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Russia has controlled the region since then.

The annexation has been mostly rejected by the international community and it is mostly considered as occupied Ukrainian land.

There is a large military presence in Crimea. Ukraine has targeted the region with drone and missile strikes.

On Sunday, it was reported that Russian air defenses shot down 635 Ukrainian drones overnight, including over Crimea and the Black and Azov Seas.

The Defense Ministry in Moscow did say how many were launched or struck targets.

Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukraine with 133 drones during the night, 24 of which hit targets, according to the Ukrainian air force. Later on Sunday, separate Russian attacks on the Ukrainian cities of Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv killed at least two people, according to local officials.

The strikes are part of a wider Ukrainian push to target Wildberries, Russia’s largest online marketplace, which is sometimes described as the country’s answer to Amazon.

In under two weeks, Ukraine has struck over a dozen of the retailer’s depots, part of Kyiv’s aerial campaign aimed at undermining Moscow’s war effort, hurting its economy and making people feel the consequences of the Kremlin’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Kyiv’s campaign against Wildberries first hit the company’s sites in Elektrostal, just east of Moscow, and in the Tambov region July 18. Strikes followed on facilities across western and southern Russia, as well as Russian-held Crimea. At least nine people have been killed and scores wounded.