Ukraine War Update: Tragedy struck in Crimea on Tuesday when four people were killed by a Russian soldier in Sevastopol.
According to France 24, the soldier, who has not been identified, opened fire on his colleagues, one of whom was killed and another wounded, before he then turned his weapon on civilians, killing three. Three other civilians were also wounded.
“All circumstances and causes of the incident are being established,” the region’s Russian-backed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said of the incident.
Tim Murry, a foreign threats compound contractor, drives a T-72 battle tank into position to serve as adversary targets for a joint service exercise, Emerald Flag, at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Nov. 30. Emerald Flag is a multi-service exercise aimed to unify information sharing across joint domain platforms. (U.S. Air Force photo/1st Lt Karissa Rodriguez)
T-72 Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The BBC, in a separate report, described the killing as a “gun rampage” and described the three civilians killed as men aged 71 and 59, and a 64-year-old woman.
The shooter has been detained, both reports said. Moscow Times cited a Telegram channel that claimed to have identified the shooter, but that report has not been confirmed.
“Emergency medical care is currently being provided to the injured, and doctors are doing everything possible to save them,” the governor said in a Telegram post, cited by other media outlets.
Mass Shootings in Russia
According to the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s study of mass shootings between 2000 and 2025, there were 24 mass shootings in Russia during that period, which is by far the most of any country in the world besides the United States.
Among the most notable of those was the Kerch school shooting, also in Crimea, in 2018, in which 19 people were killed in what has been called the “Russian Columbine.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the time, had called the shooting the “result of globalization.”
In the even more deadly Crocus City Hall shooting in 2024, for which ISIS-K claimed responsibility, nearly 150 people were killed, with guns and knives, in what was commonly considered a terrorist attack.
Mass shootings have come to Ukraine as well. Back in April, there was a mass shooting in Kyiv‘s Holosiivskyi district, in which six people were killed by a Russian-born gunman with an automatic weapon. The gunman had held hostages in a supermarket before police shot and killed him. That shooting led to a push to loosen gun laws in Ukraine.
Seven Killed in Attacks on Crimea, Black Sea Resort
The shooting this week was part of a deadly day in Crimea, as there was also a Ukrainian strike there, and another across the Black Sea from the Russia-occupied peninsula.
Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed governor, said in a Monday Telegram post that four people had been killed in a Ukrainian strike on Crimea, as cited by France24.
The same day, a drone reportedly crashed onto a “busy beach” in Arkhipo-Osipovka, a resort on the Russian Black Sea coast to the Crimean Peninsula’s east. Russia claimed that six people were killed, three of them children.
Per The Guardian, Russian officials have blamed Ukraine for those 11 deaths, and also for an explosion over the weekend that killed five people in a central Moscow restaurant. The newspaper reported speculation that a “senior Russian military commander” may have been the target of the restaurant strike.
“The bloody tentacles of [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy’s terrorist gang have reached the Balzi Rossi Italian restaurant in Moscow,” Russia’s foreign ministry said of the Moscow attack. Col Gen Alexander Chaiko, who commands Russia’s aerospace forces, was reportedly at the restaurant at the time, for a birthday banquet.
A Ukraine Strike on Crimean Radar
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) said this week that it had used its new, cutting-edge Magura naval platforms to successfully strike “two Russian radar-related targets” in Crimea, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing the unit’s Telegram channel.
The attack, which utilized FPV (first-person-view) drones, took place in late July and was carried out by the HUR’s Group 13 special unit. The targets, the unit said, were “a command vehicle belonging to a Podlet radar system and a Parol-4 identification friend-or-foe radar interrogator.”
It was notable as the first time those platforms had used FPV drones against Russian targets in Crimea. They had previously used Magura sea drones to much success.
“From now on, our Maguras threaten the Russian occupiers on land as well — this fundamentally shifts the fight into a new dimension,” HUR said this week.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
