Bizarre Saber Attack in Central Kyiv Leaves One Injured

A 49-year-old man attacked an unsuspecting bar visitor with a saber late on August 4, Kyiv’s department of the National Police reported on their website. The incident took place outside Grails, a popular bar in Kyiv’s downtown Podil district.

Eyewitness Sviat Popov says he was at the scene when the attack happened. He was standing outside the Grails bar when he saw a man “unsatisfied with life, the bar visitors, the bar itself.”

“[The man] went into the residential building next to the bar [and five minutes later] came out with a saber,” Popov wrote on Facebook on August 5. “But he wasn’t just showing it off to everyone, he was genuinely swaying it around with all seriousness.”

“[Then,] a young man wearing glasses came out of the bar and was hit in the face with the saber. The man’s glasses were shattered, blood spattered , [complete] obscurity,” Popov wrote.

The police say the victim received head injuries and was taken to a hospital. The attack is qualified as hooliganism and the perpetrator now faces up to seven years in prison.

The police also say that the attack took place following a conflict between the two men. However, Popov says he didn’t see any interaction between them prior to the blood shedding. He told Hromadske that the attacker, however, had a conflict with another man, whom he referred to as his “brother,” outside the bar before he briefly resorted to the building nearby.

“He was acting aggressive toward all the bar visitors, and his acquaintance/brother (that’s how the attacker addressed him) tried to stop [the attacker],” Popov says.

When the assailant came out again, this “brother/acquaintance continued trying to stop the man. The crowd scattered, some grabbed their chairs in an attempt to protect themselves.”

Popov adds that before things turned bloody the attacker’s “brother” warned everyone about the danger, asking them to leave. He describes the situation as “stressful.”

/By Maria Romanenko