Kyiv attacker called himself 'Russian army general' – police chief
Photo of the shooter who carried out the terrorist attack in Kyiv on April 18 (Photo: Anti-Corruption Center)
Video found on the phone of Dmytro Vasylchenkov, who carried out the deadly April 18 attack in Kyiv, shows him calling himself a “general of the Russian army,” Ukraine’s national police chief Ivan Vyhivskyi said on Apr. 22.
“When we examined certain files on his phone, he was constantly filming himself while shooting. At times he walked around the building entrance calling himself a general of the Russian army. We understand he had certain issues,” Interfax-Ukraine quoted Vyhivskyi as saying.
On April 18, a 58-year-old Moscow-born man living in Kyiv opened fire on people in the Holosiivskyi district and then took hostages at a Velmart supermarket. At the same time, a fire broke out in the shooter’s apartment.
KORD special forces killed him during the assault. Seven people, excluding the shooter, were reported killed and 14 injured. Law enforcement classified the shooting of civilians and hostage-taking as a terrorist attack.
The shooter was identified as Dmytro Vasylchenkov. According to media reports, he held anti-Ukrainian and antisemitic views. The OSINT team of Toronto Television found his Facebook account, which was active from 2016 to 2019.
The investigation said Vasylchenkov did not recognize Ukraine’s legitimacy, referring to it as the “so-called Ukraine,” and regretted that militant Igor Girkin had not “completely destroyed Bakhmut” in 2014.
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