Four people, including three civilians, were killed by an unidentified soldier in the Black Sea city of Sevastopol in Russian-annexed Crimea, the city’s Moscow-installed governor said on Tuesday.
“A tragedy in Sevastopol…According to initial information, a soldier opened fire on his fellow servicemen, killing one person, before attacking civilians and killing three of them,” Mikhail Razvozhayev wrote in a post on Telegram.
He added the assailant, whose nationality was not specified and whose motives were not immediately clear, was arrested.
“Emergency services, investigators and forensic experts are currently working at the scene. All the circumstances and causes of what happened are being established,” the Russian head of the city administration added.
He also called on everyone to remain calm, trust only official information and not to spread unverified rumours.
The civilian victims were two men aged 71 and 59, and a 64-year-old woman, Razvozhayev added.
Crimea, a peninsula illegally annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, has for weeks been the target of Ukrainian retaliatory attacks aimed at disrupting the logistics of Russian forces deployed in southern Ukraine.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has regularly struck its neighbour, including from the Crimean peninsula.
Additional sources • AFP