Chilling footage appears to show a man walking towards a school with a rifle and homemade bombs before nine people were brutally killed.
Seven children died after a lone teenage gunman opened fire in a school in the Russian city of Kazan today.
After sounds of an explosion rang out at the four-storey School Number 175 children and teachers cowered under desks in terror while some pupils were seen leaping from a third storey building.
“We heard the sounds of explosions at the beginning of the second lesson. All the teachers locked the children in the classrooms,” said one teacher, quoted by Tatar Inform, a local media outlet.
“The shooting was on the third floor.”
(Image: Anton Raykhshtat/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Footage from the scene shows a figure clad in black walking purposefully towards the school holding what appears to be a long rifle in his hands.
The suspected shooter, who has been named locally as Ilnaz Galyaviev, stormed in just after 9.20am.
He claimed on social media that he would kill himself but was taken into custody alive.
In footage a figure was seen being pinned to the ground outside the school by a police officer.
State TV later broadcast a separate video showing what it said was the suspect, a young man stripped to the waist and under restraint, being questioned by investigators.
He could be heard saying that “a monster” had awoken in him, that he had realised that he was a god, and had begun to hate everyone.
(Image: social media)
Calling the attack a tragedy for the country, Rustam Minnikhanov, the head of the wider Tatarstan region, said there was no evidence that anyone else had been involved.
“We have lost seven children – four boys and three girls. We also lost a teacher. And we lost one more female staff worker,” he said in a video address.
“The terrorist has been arrested. He’s a 19-year-old who was officially registered as a gun owner,” he said.
He said the victims were in the eighth year of school, which in Russia would make them around 14 or 15 years old.
The massacre was Russia’s deadliest school shooting since 2018 when a student at a college in Russian-annexed Crimea killed 20 people before turning his gun on himself.
(Image: social media)
A social media account called “God”, which Russian media said belonged to the suspect, has been blocked by the Telegram messaging service.
Posts from the account featured a young masked and bespectacled man describing himself as a god.
He said he planned to kill a “huge number” of people and himself.
Minnikhanov, the regional leader, said 18 children were in hospital with a range of injuries following the shooting, including gunshot wounds and broken and fractured bones.
Three adults with gunshot wounds were also in hospital, he said, saying doctors were doing all they could to save the lives of those wounded.
Footage showed a corridor inside the school strewn with debris, including smashed glass and broken doors.
Another still image showed a body on the floor of a blood-stained classroom, while a video from inside the school showed people cowering beneath desks in terror.
(Image: iptash)
Russia has strict restrictions on civilian firearm ownership, but some categories of guns are available for purchase for hunting, self-defence or sport, once would-be owners have passed tests and met other requirements.
President Vladimir Putin has ordered the head of the national guard to draw up tighter gun regulations, the Kremlin said.
The guards would urgently look into the status of weapons that can be registered for hunting in Russia but are considered assault weapons elsewhere.
The suspect had been issued a permit for a Hatsan Escort PS shotgun on April 28, Alexander Khinshtein, a lawmaker in the lower house of parliament, wrote on social media.
Kazan is the capital of the Muslim-majority region of Tatarstan and located around 450 miles (725 km) east of Moscow.