At least 13 people, including seven children, were killed in a shooting at a school in Izhevsk, central Russia, investigators said on Monday, adding that the attacker committed suicide.
“Thirteen people, including six adults and seven minors, died in this crime,” Russia’s Investigative Committee had previously said in a statement, adding that 14 children and seven adults were injured.
The suspect was wearing a “black pullover with Nazi symbols and a balaclava,” investigators said. This is a former student of the center, Artiom Kazantsev, born in 1988, they specified in another statement. “We are checking if he was in tune with neo-fascist positions and Nazi ideology,” the source said.
A previous balance of the investigation committee reported nine victims, including five children.
The committee also released a video showing the body of an individual lying on the ground, with blood around his skull and wearing a black pullover with a red swastika.
“The police found the body of the man who opened fire. According to our information, he committed suicide,” explained the Russian Ministry of the Interior, which initially reported six dead and 20 wounded.
The events occurred in the morning at school No. 88 in Izhvesk, a city located west of the Urals, which divide the European part from the Asian part of Russia, and which houses the factories of Kalashnikov assault rifles.
The establishment has about a thousand students and 80 teachers, according to its website.
“Inhumane Terrorist Act”
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the attack an “inhumane terrorist act,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said.
“The president deeply mourns the death of people and children in this school where a terrorist attack was carried out,” Peskov said, adding that Putin wishes “the wounded … to recover.”
According to the regional governor, Alexander Brechalov, in a video posted on Telegram, the attacker entered the school, killed the guard and then opened fire inside the establishment, aiming at the children.
Visibly moved, the governor spoke in front of the school. In the background, medical personnel could be seen entering the building.
“The evacuation is over” and the “whole perimeter is cordoned off,” Brechalov explained in the video, specifying that the Russian National Guard, the FSB security services and the authorities in charge of the investigation were at the scene.
An investigation was opened for “murder” and “illegal carrying of weapons”, which was transferred to the Russian investigative committee, the country’s main investigative body.
Monday’s shooting comes amid a tense climate in many regions of Russia, against a backdrop of military mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists for the offensive in Ukraine.
This Monday also, a man opened fire at a Russian army recruitment center in Siberia, seriously wounding a soldier who worked there.
The phenomenon of shootings used to be very unusual in the country, especially in schools, but in recent years it has become more frequent, to the point that Vladimir Putin expressed his concern, attributing the causes to events imported from the United States and the perverse effect of globalization.
Izhevsk is a city of about 650,000 inhabitants and is the capital of the Republic of Udmurtia, located in the center of the country.
