A gunman attacked a school in the Russian city of Kazan on Tuesday morning, killing seven students and a teacher, officials have said.
Rustam Minnikhanov, the president of the Tatarstan republic where Kazan is the capital, said four male and three female eighth-grade students died in “a great tragedy for the whole country”. Minnikhanov’s press service later said a teacher was also killed. Eighth-grade children in Russia are 13 and 14 years old.
Footage posted on social media showed a young man being pinned to the ground outside the school by a police officer.
Minnikhanov said a 19-year-old “terrorist” had been arrested and that the firearm used in the shooting was registered in the suspect’s name. “Other accomplices haven’t been established, an investigation is under way,” he said after visiting the school, adding that security had been restored.
Security forces take up positions outside the school. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
According to Tatarstan health officials, 21 people were taken to hospital with wounds after the attack, including 18 children, six of whom were in intensive care. Russia’s state RIA Novosti news agency reported earlier that 11 people had been killed.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, expressed his condolences to families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to those injured in the shooting, ordering the government to provide them with all the necessary assistance.
Putin also ordered Viktor Zolotov, head of Russia’s National Guard, to revise the regulations on types of weapons allowed for civilian use in light of the attack.
Security officers at the school in Kazan. Photograph: Max Zareckiy/Reuters
Authorities said additional security measures had been put into place in all schools in Kazan, about 430 miles east of Moscow.
While school shootings are relatively rare in Russia, there have been several violent attacks on schools in recent years, mostly carried out by students.
One of the last major shootings took place in Russian-annexed Crimea in 2018, when a student at a college killed 20 people before killing himself.
