Ukraine’s interior minister orders probe into police who fled during Kyiv shooting

Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry head Ihor Klymenko has ordered an internal investigation into the conduct of police officers during the terrorist attack in Kyiv that killed six people.

Shortly after the shooting in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district, bystander video spread across social media showing two patrol officers speaking with a child when they heard gunshots and fled, leaving the boy alone on the street. The video ends with the child also running away as a wounded man falls nearby.

“To serve and protect is not just a slogan. It must be backed by the appropriate professional conduct — especially in critical moments when lives depend on it,” Klymenko said.

Ivan Vyhovsky, chief of the National Police of Ukraine, whom the minister tasked with the investigation, said the internal review had already begun. The officers seen in the video have been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

On the evening of April 18, a gunman opened fire on pedestrians in Kyiv before barricading himself inside a supermarket. Six people were killed and 15 others were wounded, including a 12-year-old boy. The attacker was killed.

Ukrainian authorities are investigating the incident as a terrorist attack. Officials said the shooter was a “58-year-old Moscow native.” Russian media identified him as Dmitry Vasilyevich Vasilchenkov, born in Moscow on April 21, 1968. Before moving to Kyiv, he had lived in Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. Vasilchenkov held Ukrainian citizenship.