Ukraine cops get ‘shoot-to-kill orders’ amid unrest over army hit & run killing of 8yo

Police have reportedly been allowed to use live rounds as tensions flare in the eastern Ukrainian town of Konstantinovka, where an eight-year-old girl was killed in a hit-and-run accident by a Ukrainian forces’ armored vehicle.

Tensions have been boiling in Konstantinovka after Ukrainian soldiers driving through the town at high speed lost control of their vehicle and ran into a crowd of pedestrians, hitting a woman with a baby in a stroller and killing the older girl.

“The accident occurred at the Lomonosov Street near City Hospital No. 5. Three pedestrians suffered under the wheels of the fighting vehicle: A girl aged eight died on the spot, a woman and a child in a stroller were taken to hospital,” Ukraine’s Interior Ministry reported Monday night.

Locals believe the driver of the vehicle was drunk at the time of the accident. According to local press, the perpetrators barely escaped the scene of the crime, as the fury of the locals erupted in clashes, with stones being thrown at security vehicles. Other residents were quick to surround the army barracks, where warning shots were reportedly fired.

Following the incident, enraged people gathered in front of the military unit stationed in the local school building, demanding the military surrender those who were involved in the hit and run accident, Sputnik reported. The crowd has also reportedly set fire to the entrance of the dorms of the Ukrainian forces.

“In the evening, near the dorms occupied by security forces, several hundred local residents gathered. They shouted: ‘Fascists!’ And threw stones at the windows of the barracks, set fire to two cars of the National Guard and overturned a third. In response, security forces fired several shots into the air,” one eyewitness told Sputnik. One of the people from the crowd reportedly threw a Molotov cocktail at one of the dorm windows, starting a fire.