Russian soldier kills four in gun rampage targeting his own colleagues and civilians in Crimea

A Russian soldier has killed four people in a rampage targeting his own colleagues before turning his gun on civilians.

Four others have been wounded in the attack at the naval port of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea. 

The soldier, believed to be Maxim Alistratov, 21, from Saratov, initially opened fire on soldiers, shooting one dead and wounding another, authorities said.

Alistratov, named by media outlets close to the Russian regime in Crimea, then began attacking civilians, killing two men and one woman and wounding another three.

The attacker was subsequently detained.

The massacre was in the Khmelnistsky area of the Balaclava district of the city, said Putin-appointed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev.

'A tragedy has occurred in Sevastopol,' he said. 'An emergency situation unfolded in the Khmelnistsky settlement.

'According to preliminary information, a serviceman opened fire on his comrades.

'One person died and another was injured.

'Then, the attacker injured three more people and killed three civilians: two men aged 71 and 59, and a 64-year-old woman.

'The attacker was detained.'

The motive for the massacre is being investigated.

Initial reports did not specify which branch of the military Alistratov belonged to.

It comes after weeks of Russia and Ukraine trading strikes, with President Zelensky's forces increasingly focussing on civilian infrastructure including large warehouses.

Attacks from Moscow overnight into Tuesday killed two children and a pensioner in Ukraine's north-east.

'Two children and an elderly woman were killed in Russian [guided aerial bomb] strikes on Sumy tonight,' Oleg Grygorov, the head of the regional military administration, said this morning.

'The girls were 5 and 10 years old. The children's bodies were recovered from under the rubble of their house.'

And early on Tuesday, a Russian kamikaze drone terrorised a civilian market seller, chasing him around his van at his stall in Kherson, before going in for the kill.

Dramatic footage showed the man being pursued relentlessly before the drone suddenly dropped towards the ground and exploded.

Miraculously, the man survived, but sustained blast injuries, shrapnel wounds and a concussion. 

It comes after a Ukrainian strike outside Moscow killed five people and wounded six others, according to Russian authorities. 

Ukraine has conducted long-range strikes targeting civilian infrastructure in Russia, and in recent weeks stepped up attacks on warehouses belonging to the Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries.

Moscow's regional governor Andrey Vorobyov said early Tuesday that several fires broke out following a drone strike in the Novoselki industrial zone outside the Russian capital.

'According to preliminary information, five people were killed and a further six wounded,' he said on Telegram.

Drones also damaged a warehouse near Krasny Bor in northwestern Russia, wounding one person, according to Leningrad regional governor Aleksandr Drozdenko.

Wildberries said that a fire broke out at its Krasny Bor logistics facility as a result of the attack.

Footage showed at least one drone careering into the site, before exploding, with the building later seen engulfed in flames.

In the Tver region, to the north-west of Moscow, another Wildberries facility was damaged by drones, Vitaly Korolyov, the acting regional governor said. Nobody was hurt in that attack.

Kyiv has sought to disrupt the operations of Wildberries, which has become a linchpin of the Russian economy.

Its CEO and founder Tatyana Kim has called the Ukrainian attacks – which have targeted more than a dozen Wildberries sites since July 18 – 'acts of terrorism'.

Meanwhile Russia said this morning that its forces hit four cargo vessels used by Ukraine's military and a vehicle parts plant at the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk.

Russia's Defence Ministry said that two dry cargo ships had been hit in the Ukrainian ports of Mykolaiv and Pivdennyi on Monday evening.

It said two more vessels carrying weapons and military equipment to Ukrainian ports had been struck south of Odesa.