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A serviceman in Russian-held Crimea shoots fellow soldiers and civilians, killing 4

A serviceman in Russian-held Crimea opened fire on fellow soldiers and civilians, killing four people and wounding four, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol said Tuesday.

The shooting occurred in the village of Khmelnytske, which is part of Sevastopol, said Gov. Mikhail Razvozhayev, without specifying when exactly it happened.

The serviceman initially opened fire at fellow soldiers, killing one and wounding another, Razvozhayev said, adding that he then killed three civilians and wounded another three people.

The gunman, who was not identified, was detained and law enforcement was investigating the incident, he added, although he did not elaborate on a possible motive for the shootings.

Crimea was illegally annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014. The peninsula on the Black Sea holds strategic importance for the Kremlin in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth year. Russian troops that were concentrated in Crimea quickly seized large parts of southern Ukraine early in the war and secured the land route to the peninsula.

In recent months, Ukraine has attacked Russian supply lines to Crimea, causing severe fuel shortages on the peninsula, which is a magnet for tourism during warmer months.

Ukrainian drone attack on an oil hub deep inside Russia kills 13, officials say

Ukraine attacked the petroleum hub of Nizhnekamsk in central Russia’s Tatarstan region on Monday, killing 13 people and injuring 78 others, local authorities said, in one of the deadliest attacks in the country in the 4-year-old war. The Ukrainian military said it hit an oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk, which is about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) east of the Ukrainian border and has a population of about 240,000. Russian officials didn't say what the drones targeted, but the city is home to two refineries and a petrochemical plant. Ukraine has targeted Russian oil facilities with long-range drones almost daily in recent months. The campaign has caused fuel shortages in Russia, eaten into its refining capacity and unsettled the population. Previous Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil with high death tolls have come in the border region of Belgorod. In December 2023, Ukrainian shelling of the region’s capital, also called Belgorod, killed 25 people and wounded over 100, local officials said. Five months later, a Belgorod apartment building partially collapsed after shelling, killing at least 13, according to Russian authorities.
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