A shooting in the Russian city of Bryansk on Thursday has claimed the lives of two female students, one of whom was the attacker, local police have reported. The shooter turned the gun on herself after opening fire on her classmates. The police said five people were injured in total.
The Investigative Committee identified the shooter as a 14-year-old girl, who used a pump action firearm that she brought to the classroom. Five other people were injured in the incident, the statement said.
The Health Ministry said all the five injured victims were teenagers and had been brought to hospital for treatment. Their conditions are considered stable. One of them is undergoing surgery, the statement said.
Unconfirmed reports by Russian media said the attacker’s name was Alina. SHOT, an online news outlet, claimed she used her father’s hunting shotgun to target a group of boys who had been hazing her lately. Other sources said the police believed a personal grudge to be the most likely motive.
SHOT added that law enforcement operatives are now questioning the girl’s father about how she got her hands on a firearm. Meanwhile, one of the shooter’s classmates told RIA Novosti that she brought the gun into the school inside a container for documents.
Russian MP Aleksandr Khinshtein posted a photo of what he said was the weapon used in the shooting, identifying the model as a Bekas-3, a 16-gauge hunting shotgun.
While school shootings are relatively rare in Russia, several regions have experienced similar tragedies in recent years. In September 2022, a gunman stormed a middle school in Izhevsk, central Russia, killing 18 people, including 11 children and three teachers. Twenty-five people were wounded in the incident.
In September 2021, a student opened fire at a university in Perm, also in central Russia, killing six people and injuring 47. In May of the same year, a 19-year-old man launched an attack on his former school in Kazan, resulting in nine dead and 32 injured.
Bryansk itself, a city located some 340km southwest of Moscow, saw an incident involving an air gun in 2014, when a 15-year-old student brought one to school and used it during a conflict with classmates. One of the projectiles he fired ricocheted off a wall and slightly injured a girl.