The tragic mass shooting in Ukraine’s capital on Saturday, where six people were killed and around 14 others injured, was quickly interpreted in a particular way in Swedish media, which focused on the mass murderer having arrived from Moscow, while information about his life in Ukraine and long career within the Ukrainian military was omitted.

It was at around 5 PM local time on Saturday that Ukraine was struck by another tragedy, when a 58-year-old Ukrainian citizen named Dmitrij Vasiljtjenkov opened fire with a carbine at passersby on the streets of Demiivka in the Holosiivskyi district, southern Kyiv.

Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko stated that five people were initially reported dead from the shooting—four on the street and one inside a grocery store where the mass murderer had entered. A woman among the injured later died at the hospital.

In Kyiv, the gunman who took shoppers hostage in a store has been killed during the assault.

Before that, he had been shooting at passersby. https://t.co/saBc7hAwmN pic.twitter.com/HCZNJo5XRA

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) April 18, 2026

At the same time as the incident, an apartment fire was discovered in the Holosiiv area. Some reports suggest the fire started in connection with the shooting, while others claim the perpetrator may have set his own home on fire.

Ukrainian special forces soon carried out an operation against the store where the man had taken hostages after shooting several people in the street. After approximately 40 minutes of negotiations with mass murderer Dmitrij Vasiljtjenkov, the premises were stormed, and the perpetrator was killed during the operation.

The Ministry of the Interior stated that Dmitrij Vasiljtjenkov had a legally registered firearm—a carbine—which was likely the weapon used in the mass shooting.

Expressen’s Russian Hunt – Omitting Information

On Saturday, Expressen reported on the incident and early on tried to connect it to Russia by emphasizing the birthplace, making it seem as if the man had recently come from Moscow to carry out the attack.

The newspaper stated that it was about a 58-year-old man from Moscow, referring to the Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Independent.

At the same time, Kyiv Independent’s reporting—which Expressen referred to—already stated on Saturday that it was about a man who had lived for a long time in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. Either Expressen missed that Donetsk is a Ukrainian region, or the detail was omitted—possibly because it did not fit Expressen’s angle.

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Several other Swedish media also omitted these facts on Saturday and instead described the perpetrator as a man born in Moscow, even though Ukrainian media at the same time stated that he had lived most of his life in Ukraine, including in Donetsk and Bucha, before moving to an apartment in Kyiv ten years ago.

According to Ukrainian media, he held Ukrainian citizenship, and according to some information, also Russian citizenship.

It was also omitted that the man reportedly had a surname that some describe as common in Ukraine and that he was born in 1968 in the former Soviet Union—a state with borders very different from today’s, marked by extensive population mixing and state-directed labor migrations during the communist era.

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Both Ukraine and Russia have historically had large population groups connected to each respective nationality—in both cases amounting to millions of people.

Ukrainian Citizen—and Soldier

Ukrainian media have delved into the mass murderer’s background, while Swedish outlets have transitioned from reporting the incident widely to downplaying it in their newsfeeds.

The Kyiv-based weekly magazine Focus.ua writes that mass murderer Dmitrij Vasiljtjenkov has had a professional career in the Ukrainian military. Furthermore, that he is a Ukrainian citizen and today retired.

He also spent his long military career operating in the Donetsk region in the country’s east within the 254th Motorized Infantry Division. He served in a battalion responsible for material-technical support and logistics.

Focus also reports that he became a military reservist after his service. The newspaper also suggests the mass murderer may have returned to some form of military service with the Ukrainian forces following Russia’s invasion. It remains unclear if or when he left the military.

Legal Cases Against Pension Authority

Parallel to this, according to sources cited by Focus, the man had bank accounts in Russia and also lived for a period between 2015–2017 in the city of Ryazan, about 200 km southeast of Moscow.

He was also involved for many years in both criminal and civil cases involving violence in Ukraine. In February 2024, he reportedly avoided punishment in an assault case after reaching a settlement with the plaintiff.

This also involves several legal proceedings he himself initiated against Ukraine’s pension agency in Kyiv, where he succeeded in getting his pension increased and in receiving extra payments.

The Ukrainian newspaper also writes that Dmitrij Vasiljtjenkov expressed strong criticism towards Ukraine on social media.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has commented on the mass killing in a video post on social media.

Investigators from the National Police and the Security Service of Ukraine are now examining all the circumstances of the attack in Kyiv against ordinary civilians.

The attacker was eliminated. He took hostages and, tragically, killed one of them. He shot dead four more people… pic.twitter.com/qIpvjzJ04V

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) April 18, 2026

Altercation in Grocery Store

A video is also circulating on social media showing Dmitrij Vasiljtjenkov making a violent move towards someone in a grocery store. According to the Ukrainian newspaper Focus, this incident took place in Kyiv in 2023, when the Ukrainian military man cut in line at the checkout and got into a quarrel with other customers.

When Vasiljtjenkov was reprimanded, he reportedly reacted aggressively, knocked a cellphone out of someone’s hand, and injured a person’s arm. The incident was caught on video and led to criminal prosecution.

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