Russia School Shooting: At Least 15 Dead, 24 Injured, Including Children in Izhevsk Before Suspect Wearing "Nazi Symbols" Shoots Himself

In a school shooting on Monday in the Russian city of Izhevsk, 600 miles east of Moscow, fifteen people were killed and 24 were injured. The incident was labeled a terrorist attack by the Kremlin.

The first through eleventh grades are taught at School Number 88, when a shooter entered and killed four adults and eleven students before turning the gun on himself.

Swastika-Wearing Gunman Shoots 15 at School in Russia

Children were seen hurriedly rushing through the school's hallways in videos from the event that were carried on TV and shared on social media, while emergency personnel were seen removing the injured. The assailant, who had two weapons, "was wearing a black top with Nazi symbols and a balaclava," according to the authorities, and "was not carrying any ID."

According to a news release, the gunman was identified as 34-year-old Artem Kazantsev, who had previously attended the institution, by Russia's top investigative authority. He had been a resident of the city, the Udmurt Republic's capital, with his mother. The area's governor, Alexander Brechalov, said he had a record with the mental health facility.

Per NY Times, the information supplied by the Russian government could not be independently verified. The incident had unsettling parallels to the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado, where two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed 13 people.

Images provided by the local media show that the bullets in the Monday shooting had the word "hate" written on it and that two braided cords tied to the guns contained the names "Eric" and "Dylan."

The prosecutor general designated the decentralized group of gunmen known as the "Columbine movement" as a "terrorist" organization in February. According to Russian officials, the "Columbine movement" has a "widely developed structure" and is "organized utilizing the possibilities of the internet."

The law enforcement agencies reportedly linked the movement to two shootings that occurred last year. A shooter invaded a Kazan school in May 2021 and murdered 9 people. On a university campus in Perm, close to the Ural Mountains, in September of that year, an 18-year-old killed six people and wounded 47 others.

Russian President Vladimir Putin "Depply Mourns"

The detectives are currently searching his home and examining the attacker's personality, viewpoints, and surroundings, according to a statement released earlier on Monday by Russia's Investigative Committee. His allegiance to Nazi ideology and neo-fascist ideas is being investigated, as per CBS News.

The shooter's body was seen in a brief police video lying on the blood-spattered classroom floor while wearing all-black clothing. President Vladimir Putin, according to the Kremlin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, "deeply mourns" the fatalities and has directed that "doctors, psychiatrists, neurosurgeons, and other professionals" be brought to the scene.

Aleksander Brechalov, the regional governor, proclaimed three days of mourning. The body of the shooter is allegedly visible in a classroom in a video provided by the Investigative Committee. In addition to a balaclava concealing his face, he looked to be dressed almost entirely in black, including a T-shirt with a red swastika painted on it.

Additionally, all of the gun clips had the word "hate" written in Russian on the video. In a statement, Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin stated, "I send my profound, genuine condolences to the families and friends of those who perished as a result of the cunning and merciless attack on the school in Izhevsk."

The shooting on Monday was the most recent in a string of recent school shootings in Russia. In a shooting in Kazan in May of last year, seven kids and two adults died. Per NBC News, a guy also murdered two kids and a teacher at a kindergarten in the central Ulyanovsk area town of Veshkayma in April before committing suicide.