Target shooting enthusiast, loner, ex-security guard: What media has dug up about FSB HQ shooter so far

A man was killed after opening fire at the FSB headquarters in Moscow. Some Russian media identified the perpetrator, who turned out to be a firearms enthusiast without any obvious signs of radicalism.

The gun attack on Thursday evening left one FSB officer dead at the scene, while five people, including a civilian, were injured. Another FSB member died in hospital later on Friday.

The shooter was killed in an intense firefight, which came as a shock for people in Moscow’s center. The authorities would not immediately identify the perpetrator, saying only that the incident is being investigated as attempted murder of law enforcement officers.

Russian media identified the gunman as Evgeny Manyurov, a 39-year-old man from Podolsk, a small satellite city located about 16km (10 miles) south of Moscow. His identity was later confirmed by Russia’s Investigative Committee.

There is not much public information about him, but he is listed as a member of a Moscow shooting club who took third place in a competition last month in the pistol caliber carbine category.

An instructor at the club said Manyurov was a poor shooter who only trained there for several months. The only outstanding thing about the man was that he insisted on practicing in a trench coat, which, according to the newspaper that conducted the interview, the man wore during the shooting. Footage shows the same type of coat on the shooter on Thursday evening.

Manyurov’s mother told another outlet that her son took up shooting three or four years ago and was passionate about it. In fact, he legally owned seven firearms, including two Saiga carbines, two hunting shotguns and a non-lethal handgun. One of the carbines was apparently used in the shooting. Since getting a license for rifles in Russia requires at least five years of ownership of a shotgun, his experience with guns must be even longer.

The suspect also had a background in law and spent some time as a private consultant. That career was apparently not very successful, since it lasted for just five months. For the past several years, he worked as a security guard, but resigned some time ago.

In one interview, Manyurov’s mother said her son “spoke on the phone to some Arabs,” but they communicated in English, which she does not understand.

His father, Fatih Manyurov, told RT’s video agency Ruptly that Evgeny didn’t seem to have close friends or a long-term partner and was going to a shooting range frequently over the last two years. While the two were apparently not very close – Evgeny’s parents got divorced when he was a baby – still, the father noticed his son was acting quite strange lately.

“He used to be a very calm guy, but he changed later,”  Manyurov said, explaining that his son turned “very secretive” and even developed an accent. “I’ve been telling him: Zhenya, speak Russian, I do not really understand you!”

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