Key facts
- A Russian soldier killed one colleague and wounded another in Sevastopol, Crimea.
- The soldier then killed three civilians and wounded three others in the village of Khmelnytske.
- The attacker has been arrested.
- The motive for the shooting is under investigation.
A Russian soldier in Crimea opened fire on his colleagues, killing one and wounding another, before turning his weapon on civilians and killing three. Three other people were wounded in the attack in the village of Khmelnytske, according to Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of the Sevastopol region. The attacker has been arrested, and authorities are working to establish the circumstances and causes of the incident. Crimea was illegally annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014. The peninsula on the Black Sea holds strategic importance for the Kremlin in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian troops that were concentrated in Crimea quickly seized large parts of southern Ukraine early in the war and secured the land route to the peninsula. In recent months, Ukraine has attacked Russian supply lines to Crimea, causing severe fuel shortages on the peninsula.