EditTragedy stuns Montenegro: Russian citizen kills three before taking own life
The perpetrator was photographed by locals who had invited him to share their lunch by the river, and describer him as cold, but smiling
On a late summer day in Montenegro, what should have been an ordinary visit by a client to a shooting range near Danilovgrad ended in sudden and irreversible violence.
Mikhail Nikolaevich Shabunin, a 30-year-old Russian citizen originally from Perm, arrived at the Češka zbrojevka range in the Strahinjići area as a regular customer. He was handed a firearm in the normal course of business. Without warning he turned the weapon on the instructors present and opened fire. Three men died at the scene: Petar Globarević, aged 20; Momir Radonjić, aged 24; and Nemanja Kapor, aged 67. Their lives ended in the place where they worked and trained others in the controlled use of fire arms.
After the shootings Shabunin stole one of the victims’ cars and fled. Montenegrin police immediately launched a large-scale search that drew in special forces units and a military helicopter. The hunt stretched across roughly one hundred kilometres of terrain. Several hours later officers located the suspect in a forested area above the settlement of Topla near Herceg Novi. When special forces closed in, Shabunin fired at the police and then turned the weapon on himself. He died at the scene. Two pistols and more than 230 rounds of ammunition, believed to have been taken from the range after the killings, were recovered along with a mobile phone, tablets and other personal items. The motive for the attack remains unknown.
A nation in mourning
The Government of Montenegro responded with formal solemnity. Tuesday 1 September and Wednesday 2 September 2026 were declared national days of mourning. In accordance with the Law on State Symbols, flags flew at half-mast on every building belonging to state bodies, local self-government and public institutions. Public cultural and entertainment programmes were cancelled. Catering establishments were ordered not to play music. Electronic and other media were instructed to adjust their content to the occasion of collective grief. A session of parliament scheduled for the first of the mourning days was postponed. In Danilovgrad itself the streets and cafés stood quiet, and the start of the school year was delayed until Thursday 3 September so that the community could mark the loss. The President and the government issued a joint statement expressing their deepest condolences to the families and friends of the three men killed.
A snapshot during a shared lunch
In the days before the shootings Shabunin had been a familiar if peripheral presence along the banks of the Zeta river. A group of young men who regularly sought relief from the Podgorica heat at the river’s edge had noticed him swimming, walking and occasionally drinking coffee in nearby bars. The day before the killings he approached them. Out of customary Montenegrin hospitality they invited him to share lunch. He accepted, stayed about an hour, gave his real name, mentioned that he was staying in a tent near the river and in Herceg Novi, and left a telephone number before departing with a black rucksack. The young men later described him as unusually cold, smiling yet detached, though nothing in the encounter suggested the violence that would follow.
When police released photographs of the suspect, the same group recognised the man they had hosted. They immediately contacted the authorities, gave the photograph they had taken and the number he had given them, and indicated that he had spoken of staying in the Herceg Novi area. Their information contributed to the rapid location of Shabunin in the forest above Topla. The young men emphasised that they routinely offered food and drink to strangers at the river as a matter of tradition; Shabunin had been no exception. They expressed the hope that the details they provided had helped prevent further harm.
Investigators continue to examine every recovered item and to reconstruct the sequence of events that began at the shooting range and ended in the woods near Herceg Novi. The Higher State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica is coordinating the inquiry. For the families of the three instructors and for the communities of Danilovgrad and beyond, the official days of mourning have provided a formal space for grief, yet the deeper work of understanding how an ordinary visitor became the author of such sudden loss has only just begun.
This article draws on reporting by EUalive’s partner AntenaM.
Caption: Mikhail Nikolaevich Shabunin, as photographed by ordinary Montenegrins who offered him lunch by the river on the day before the killing. [Photo credit: Police of Montenegro]
Updated: September 2, 2026 - 11:01
