At least 15 people, including 11 children, were killed in a significant school shooting in Russia today after a shooter who was inspired by the iconic Columbine school massacre went on the rampage.
The incident happened at school No. 88 in Izhevsk, the Udmurt Republic’s capital in Russia, which is located around 600 miles east of Moscow.
Later, after the attacker had committed suicide, police discovered him dead inside the school. He was recognized as Artyom Kazantsev, a 1988-born former student of school No. 88.
Shocking video showed instructors and students ducking under desks and hiding in cabinets in their classrooms as the shooter made his way through the hallways.
When other kids tried to flee the shooting by leaping out of windows, many were hurt.
Videos shared on the messaging platform Telegram captured the moment armed police surrounded the building to look for the shooter while other policemen and instructors rushed terrified children to the exits.
A Nazi insignia was seen on the man’s clothes in photos of his body.
The handguns used in the assault, in the meantime, were decorated with keychains produced by the attackers in memory of the Columbine shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who carried out a notorious school massacre in Colorado, USA, in 1999.
The words “Eric” and “Dylan” were displayed on one chain, while “Columbine” was displayed on the other.
What transpired is not a terrorist attack, according to a statement that was shared on Telegram and is believed to have been authored by the perpetrator.
I beg you to cite hate as the only explanation for what occurred. I don’t belong to any radical groups, and I have no expectations from the political realm.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, condemned the shooting as a “inhumane terrorist assault.”
According to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, “the president wishes for the recovery of those wounded as a consequence of this horrible terrorist act.”
As the shooter perambulated the hallways, students in fear and a teacher took cover inside a biology classroom, as shown in the video provided on the Telegram messaging service.
From inside the siege, an anonymous girl wrote: “We are in biology class.
From class to lab moved. The whole class is seated and in tears. They provide us no information. Very ominous.
In another video, youngsters between the ages of nine and ten were seen huddling in a classroom and crouching on the floor.
Be Quiet! is heard being spoken between them.
According to reports, 50-year-old school director Elena Semashko barricaded herself and an injured kid in an office to escape the assault.
According to the press office for the ministry of education, Sergei Kravtsov, the department’s chief, has sent a team to the school to supervise the inquiry after the incident.
Up until it was discovered that the shooter had shot himself in room 403, a significant effort was under progress by Russian law enforcement to break the siege.
After the incident, video showed injured students being led from the school to waiting ambulances.
One was brought out on top of a school desk with evident wounds.
There are 80 instructors and 982 pupils at the school.
According to accounts, many of those impacted were first graders, or seven years old.
13 people were declared dead and 14 more wounded as a result of Kazantsev’s assault by Russia’s Investigative Committee.
Alexander Brechalov, the governor of Udmurtia, declared: “Everything is set up at school 88.” There are both special services and an ambulance. I will be reporting on any updates while I’m there.
The guard was slain when an unknown individual entered the school, and it is already known that there are victims among the students as well as injured. The evacuation is now over.
Later, according to Brechalov, “it is already known that a guard was slain, there are casualties among youngsters, and there are injured.” The assailant killed himself.
The legendary AK-47 assault rifle was created in Izhevsk, along with many other small guns that are used all over the globe, and is the center of the Kalashnikov weapons empire.
The school is near to the main government structures in Izhevsk, a city with around 650,000 population.
In Irkutsk, a city in Russia’s far east, another shooter opened fire inside a military recruitment office, critically wounding the senior military recruiter.
The moment the guy approached the recruiter, he was caught on dramatic video as he stepped on stage in front of fresh recruits and fired one shot at point-blank range while yelling, “Nobody is going to fight!”
The guy, Ruslan Zinin, 25, was upset that his buddy had been called up to the military after Putin announced a partial military mobilization in response to the conflict in Ukraine.
According to local accounts, Zinin had informed his mother that he was heading to the recruiting office to enroll freely.
The incident left military commissar Alexander Eliseev in “serious condition,” according to Irkutsk area governor Igor Kobzev, who also added that the gunman was apprehended there and “would surely be punished.”
A recruiting center in the Volgograd area was firebombed overnight, and resistance to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is growing after he issued the order to begin enlisting soldiers.