MOSCOW.- At least 17 people were killed, including 11 children, after a man entered school No. 88 to shoot in cold blood. de Izhevskin the center of Russia, a town located about 970 kilometers east of Moscow. The attacker committed suicide after also injuring 24 other people -22 children and 2 adults-, the Russian Investigative Committee reported in a statement. The Russian President, Vladimir Putindenounced this Monday the attack as a “inhuman terrorist act”.
The attacker wore a “black pullover with Nazi symbology and a balaclava”, added the same source, specifying that “his identity was being established.” The agency also published a video showing the body of an individual lying on the ground, with blood around the skull, which would be that of the attacker. the news agency Tass he quoted investigators as saying the attacker was carrying two pistols and a large amount of ammunition.
“President Vladimir Putin deeply mourns the death of people and children in this school where a terrorist attack was carried out,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters.
The regional governor, Alexander Brechalov, indicated that “an unidentified person” entered the school, killed the guard and then opened fire inside the establishment, aiming at the children.
“The evacuation is over” and the “whole perimeter is cordoned off,” added the official in front of the institution that teaches primary classes. According to the school’s social networks, it was founded in 1994; it now has 982 students and employs 80 teachers.
The local official specified that the Russian National Guard, the FSB security services and the authorities in charge of the investigation are at the scene. Ijevsk is a city of about 650,000 inhabitants and is the capital of the Republic of Udmurtia, located in the center of the country, just west of the Ural Mountains, which divide the European part from the Asian part of Russia.
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 President Vladimir Putin expressed his concern attributing the causes to events imported from the United States and the effect of globalization.
Russian citizens have seen several school shootings in recent years. In May 2021, an armed teenager killed seven children and two adults in the city of Kazan. In April 2022, a gunman killed two children and a teacher at a kindergarten in the central Ulyanovsk region before committing suicide.
With information from AFP and AP