A Russian serviceman killed four people and wounded four others after opening fire in the village of Khmelnitske near Sevastopol in Crimea, according to officials on Tuesday.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of the Sevastopol region, said the shooting began when the soldier opened fire on fellow servicemen, killing one and wounding another. The attacker then turned the weapon on civilians, killing three people.
The victims included one soldier and three civilians aged 59, 64, and 71.
The civilian victims were identified as two men, aged 59 and 71, and a 64-year-old woman.
The governor stated the attacker has been arrested. While the wounded are receiving medical treatment, investigators and forensic experts are working at the scene to establish the circumstances and causes of the incident. Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive for the shooting.
The exiled news outlet Agentstvo claimed to have identified the shooter as 21-year-old Maxim Alistratov from southern Russia’s Saratov region, citing a screenshot from a local chat group. A chat group in the area also warned that the soldier had fled into the woods after the initial shooting.
Crimea has been controlled by Russia since 2014, a move branded illegal by Ukraine and most of the international community. Crimea has for weeks been the target of Ukrainian retaliatory attacks aimed at disrupting the logistics of Russian forces.
In a separate incident on Monday, Moscow-installed governor Sergey Aksyonov reported that four people were killed in a Ukrainian strike on Crimea.
