A Russian soldier stationed in Crimea opened fire on his fellow servicemen, resulting in one death and another injury, before turning his weapon on civilians and killing three more individuals. Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor appointed by Russia in the Sevastopol region, confirmed the incident and stated that the gunman has been apprehended. He described the event as a tragedy, detailing that the soldier first shot at his comrades and then proceeded to attack civilians. Authorities are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting. Crimea, which was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, has been under increased Ukrainian assault in recent weeks, aimed at disrupting Russian military operations and severing their supplies of fuel and electricity.
In a separate incident, Russian ballistic missiles struck Kyiv early Wednesday, resulting in one fatality and injuring a dozen others, while causing significant damage to various buildings across multiple districts. Air raid alarms were activated for over an hour following the strikes. Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported that a warehouse near the city center was destroyed, and rescue teams managed to extract two individuals from the wreckage, with concerns that more victims could still be trapped. Additionally, the attack caused an ammonia leak, which emergency crews are currently addressing.
Ukrainian drones targeted warehouses within Russia, affecting several facilities linked to the online retailer Wildberries, according to local reports. Wildberries confirmed that a warehouse near St. Petersburg caught fire, fortunately without any reported injuries. In the Tver region, approximately 180 kilometers northwest of Moscow, a Wildberries location sustained damage from drone strikes. In Chekhov, located in the Moscow region, a drone attack ignited a warehouse, resulting in five fatalities in the Novoselki industrial area. Another drone incident near Krasny Bor in northwestern Russia injured one person, while a fire erupted at a Lenta distribution center in the Leningrad region after a drone crash.
Ukraine has accused Russia of a war crime following the release of a video depicting a drone pursuing a street vendor in Kherson, where the explosive impact left the vendor, a man in his 50s, injured but alive. He reportedly took cover under a vehicle to escape the blast. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed outrage over the incident, urging for actions that would compel Russia to reconsider its aggressive stance and prioritize peace over the expansion of its drone operations.
According to Ukraine’s police and Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, the attack occurred on Tuesday and is representative of a systematic Russian strategy to intimidate the civilian population. Sybiha labeled the drone strike as a “barbaric war crime,” calling for international accountability while emphasizing that numerous similar acts remain unseen by the public. He asserted that the drone’s operator must have known the target was a civilian.
In the northern city of Sumy, Russian guided bomb strikes claimed the lives of two children and an elderly woman, as reported by regional governor Oleh Hryhorov. Conversely, Russia asserted that a Ukrainian drone attack in Gelendzhik, a Black Sea resort, resulted in the deaths of seven individuals, including three children, and injured 60 others. A Ukrainian official countered that the drone crash was due to Russian air defenses shooting it down, maintaining that Ukraine directs its military efforts solely at Russian military and infrastructural targets.
On Tuesday, hundreds of mourners clad predominantly in white participated in a procession through central Kyiv, escorting the open casket of Vitalina Yarovenko, a university student who was killed by a Russian strike while aiding victims of a prior attack. Her mother requested a funeral procession akin to those held for fallen soldiers. The somber group was accompanied by traffic halting to allow them passage, with many drivers exiting their vehicles to stand in silence or kneel with hands over their hearts. Russia has frequently targeted emergency responders by launching successive strikes on residential areas, employing a tactic known as “double tap” to inflict harm on rescue teams responding to initial attacks.
