A school shooting in the Russian city of Izhevsk claims at least 15 lives. Kremlin boss Putin speaks of a “terrorist attack” and sees neo-fascists at work. Local authorities say the attacker is a former student.
A gunman classified by the Kremlin as a suspected neo-fascist killed 15 people, including 11 children, in a Russian school. The Russian investigative committee said that 24 other people, including 22 children, were injured in the morning gun attack in Izhevsk. According to the preliminary findings of the investigators, the alleged shooter committed suicide at the school. Russia’s head of state Vladimir Putin spoke of a “terrorist attack”.
“President Putin mourns the deaths of adults and children at a school where there was a terrorist attack by a person who appears to belong to a neo-fascist group,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow. “The President wishes a speedy recovery to those injured in this inhumane terrorist attack.”
According to the authorities, the alleged perpetrator committed suicide. The investigative committee said it was a former student of the school who was born in 1988 and gave his name as Artiom Kasanzew. During the crime he wore a black sweater “with Nazi symbols” and covered his face. “We are checking whether he adhered to neo-fascist positions and Nazi ideology,” the investigators said. They also released a video of the alleged shooter’s body lying on the floor. His head was in a pool of blood and he was wearing a sweater with a swastika on it. According to their own statements, the investigators also searched the apartment of the alleged perpetrator.
Initially, the Russian Ministry of the Interior had spoken of at least six dead and 20 injured in the violence at school number 88 in Izhevsk. According to the Ministry of Health, 14 paramedic teams and a number of doctors were deployed at the school. The responsible governor Alexander Brechalov said in a video on Telegram that the attacker first killed a security guard before opening fire at the school. The school has been evacuated and sealed off, and the Russian National Guard, officials from the FSB and officials responsible for the investigation are on site. Investigations into murder and illegal carrying of a weapon were opened shortly after the crime and handed over to the Russian investigative committee.
The gun attack came amid a tense situation in many parts of Russia. The reason is the partial mobilization with the call-up of hundreds of thousands of reservists for Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. A man opened fire at a Russian army recruitment center in Siberia, seriously injuring an army member working there.
Ischewsk, around 1200 kilometers east of Moscow, is the capital of the Russian Republic of Udmurtia and has around 630,000 inhabitants. The city is west of the Urals, which separates the European and Asian parts of Russia. Several factories producing Kalashnikov assault rifles are located in the city. The attacked school has nearly a thousand students and 80 teachers, according to its website.
Gun attacks used to be rare in Russia. However, they have increased in recent years. President Putin had spoken of a phenomenon imported from the USA and criticized such acts of violence as a side effect of globalization. In April, a man shot dead two children and a teacher at an elementary school in the Olyanovsk region before committing suicide. In 2018, 19 people were killed in a gun attack by a student in a high school in Kerch on the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
