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Kerch college attack and a week of shocks
Summary
A look back at 17 October 2018, when a mass killing in Crimea came days after a church schism and a fatal air crash.
What did the news from Ukraine and its neighbourhood look like on 17 October 2018? It was dominated by a mass killing at a polytechnic college in Kerch, in which 20 people died and about 50 were wounded.
The attack came at the end of a few days of heavy news. On 15 October 2018, the Russian Orthodox Church announced it would break communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The step was a response to plans by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to recognise the autocephaly of two Ukrainian Orthodox Churches. Moscow said it hoped Constantinople would change its mind and so avoid a schism. As reported at the time, the move added a new aspect to the rift between Russia and Ukraine.
The same day brought a military loss. During the international exercise Clear Sky 2018 in the Vinnytsia region, a Ukrainian Air Force Su-27UB crashed. Two pilots died: one serving in the Ukrainian armed forces and the other from the Air National Guard of the United States.
Three separate events
These were distinct events: a church dispute, an air accident during multinational training and a killing at a college. Each is documented on its own terms, and the reports from those days draw no link between them. Taken together, they show how crowded the agenda was in the middle of October 2018, with 17 October marked by the loss of life in Kerch.
