A gunman who killed six people and injured more than a dozen others on the streets of Kyiv on Saturday had a lengthy history of virulent antisemitic posts on social media, according to Ukrainian media reports. The suspect, identified as Dmitry Vasilchenkov, allegedly fired on bystanders at random before barricading himself inside a grocery store, where police ultimately killed him.
According to the reports, Vasilchenkov was born in Moscow in 1968 but held Ukrainian nationality and had served in the Ukrainian army until the early 2000s. He reportedly lived in Russia from 2015 to 2017 before returning to Kyiv. Ukrainian outlet Toronto Television reported that his social media accounts contained posts defending the Holocaust and historical pogroms, including statements that “Hitler didn’t kill enough.” The revelation adds a chilling ideological dimension to what was already one of the worst mass shootings in Kyiv’s recent history.
