Russia School Shooting Leaves 13 Dead, Including 7 Children

A gunman with a swastika on his T-shirt has killed 13 people, including seven children, and wounded more than 20 at a school in Russia before killing himself, investigators have said.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes, said it was looking into the attacker’s suspected neo-Nazi links. It named him as Artem Kazantsev, a man in his early thirties, and said he was a graduate of the school.

“Currently investigators … are conducting a search of his residence and studying the personality of the attacker, his views and surrounding milieu,” the committee said in a statement. “Checks are being made into his adherence to neo-fascist views and Nazi ideology.”

The committee said the six adult victims included teachers and security guards. It said 21 people, including 14 children, were wounded.

A city of around 630,000 people, Izhevsk is the regional capital of Russia’s Udmurt Republic, located around 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) east of Moscow.

Mass shootings at schools and universities in Russia were rare until 2021 when the country was rocked by two separate killing sprees in the central Russian cities of Kazan and Perm that spurred lawmakers to tighten laws regulating access to guns.