Ukrainian conscript soldier shoots five guards as clashes with separatists continue

Europe, News January 28, 2022 , by IRIA No Comments

Ukrainian police detained a 21-year-old National Guard soldier who shot guards at an arms factory for unknown reasons, killing five, including four soldiers and a civilian woman, and wounding five others, Ukraine’s interior minister said in a Facebook post.

According to the police, the shooting occurred around 4 AM at the Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant Yuzhmash, Pivdenmash missile factory, in Dnipro, as the gunman opened fire on soldiers when they were collecting their weapons in the guard’s locker room.

According to the authorities, there were 22 people in the room at the time when the national guard, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition, started shooting.

According to the State Bureau of Investigation, the gunman had contacted police himself and surrendered to officers in the town of Pidgorodne just outside of Dnipro.

*^{The gunman had contacted police himself and surrendered to officers after shooting five guards. (Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs/AFP)}*

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy said that the soldier was identified as “Artem Ryabchuk” and stressed that he would “bear the strictest responsibility provided by law”.

The five injured were being treated and the “doctors are fighting to save their lives,” Monastyrskiy added.

“The motives for the crime are not yet known,” Ukraine’s interior ministry said. However, after the gunman was arrested, he calmly told police how he killed the victims one by one, and shot the civilian woman in the head because she refused to open a door to let him leave the factory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered deep condolences to the family and friends of the victims and described the shooting as a terrible act.

Zelensky said: “I expect law enforcement officers to keep the public fully informed about all the circumstances of this crime,’ he said, including the gunman’s motives and ‘how the incident was allowed to happen.”

Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky said: ‘Following my order, a commission will be set up to study the circumstances that led to these actions being taken by a 21-year-old soldier, who had been called to defend his country and be responsible for security – and not to shoot his colleagues.’

According to the list provided by the Ukrainian authorities, the dead were named as Senior Lieutenant Oleksandr Buganov, 34, Senior soldier, and civilian guard Vera Lebydinets, 35, Senior soldier Artyom Levkivskyi, 21, Senior Soldier Leonid Chernik, 19, and Junior Sergeant Oleksandr Dragan, 24. While, the wounded were Denis Namestnik, 19, Yevgen Machula, 20, Zhanna Sharova, 22, Vladislav Gulida, 22, and Igor Semenchenko, 24.

The deadly shooting comes at a time when Ukraine was on high alert as it clashed with separatists in the east of the country.

The Pivdenmash missile factory is an aerospace and rocket factory that was once used to produce intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).