This Thursday, January 27, a soldier of the Ukrainian National Guard was arrested after opening fire on his comrades, killing five and wounding five with his weapon, a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, the incident took place overnight from Wednesday to Thursday at the Yuzhmash factory in Dnipro, in the center of the country, which manufactures rockets and space launchers, but also missiles, vehicles and industrial tools. National Guard Commander Nikolai Balan visited the scene.
The shooter, born in 2001, had just received his weapon before his shift. A special operation had been launched in the city to find him. “The motives for the crime are not yet known,” the ministry said.
A recurring phenomenon
Shootings in military units in the former USSR are a recurrent phenomenon, often due to hazing, which has long been one of the most serious problems in these countries.
These hazings, sometimes violent, are regularly the cause of suicides or murders.
This incident took place in a very tense context between Ukraine and Russia. A military escalation, reminiscent of the annexation of Crimea in 2014, which plunged a large part of Western countries into a state of alert.
