Eleven people were killed when gunmen attacked a Russian military training base in Belgorod on Saturday, according to Moscow's defense ministry.
The RIA news agency reported that, according to the ministry, two men opened fire and killed a group of people who had volunteered to fight. Aside from the fatalities, 15 people sustained wounds in the shooting in the southwest Belgorod region, near the border of Ukraine.
Per Reuters, the report claimed that both attackers had been killed by gunfire; they were citizens of a former Soviet republic that was not named in the report. Several Russian independent news sources claimed the death toll could be more than the official tally.
The attack came one week after a blast damaged a bridge in Crimea, the peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Russian authorities arrested eight people and blamed Ukraine for the incident.
The gunmen, identified by Russian authorities as "terrorists," used small weapons to shoot the personnel of the unit while engaged in a firearms training session with volunteer individuals interested in participating in the special military operation of Russia against Ukraine, as per the RIA report.
Attackers Were Tajikistan 'Terrorists'
In a YouTube interview, Oleksiy Arestovych, a counselor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claimed that the assailants were from the Central Asian country of Tajikistan. The attackers started shooting at the others following a dispute over religion, per Al Jazeera.
While Muslims make up the vast majority in Tajikistan, Russians of all faiths make up about half the country.
The Russian ministry claimed the attackers came from one of the nine post-Soviet states that comprise the Commonwealth of Independent States, including Tajikistan.
Sota Vision, an independent Russian news website, reported the attack in Soloti, 105 km. (65 miles) southeast of Belgorod.
About 300,000 Russians who had previously served in the military were mobilized last month at Putin's order. Protests were held all over Russia as a result of the order, and a record number of people tried to leave the country.
In early October, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu revealed that over 200,000 reservists had been called up to join the Russia-Ukraine war.
Violent Incidents Shake Belgorod
The assault on the Belgorod training ground on Saturday was the most recent in a string of violent incidents that have rocked the Russian region.
The governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reported earlier on Saturday that a fuel depot had been shelled and was on fire. He shared a picture of a building ablaze with thick black smoke billowing out from it.
Meanwhile, as per a report from Al Jazeera, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy remarked that around 65,000 Russians have died since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in February, significantly more than Moscow's official September 21 estimate of 5,937.
The Pentagon said that between 70,000 and 80,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or hurt in August.
Despite numerous Russian strikes, Ukrainian troops are still holding the vital eastern town of Bakhmut, while the situation in Donbas remains challenging.
Russian soldiers have regularly sought to take Bakhmut, which is near Sloviansk and Kramatorsk within the Donetsk region.
Read also: Crimea Bridge Blast: Russia Arrests Suspects Over Shocking Explosion | Here's What Happened
