Russian girl, 14, shoots dead classmate, commits suicide

A Russian girl shot several classmates at school on Thursday, killing one person and wounding five others before killing herself, state news agencies and authorities said.

The shooting happened at a school in Bryansk, a city in a region of the same name that borders Ukraine, Russia’s Investigative Committee said.

One of the people wounded was in serious condition, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said.

A fellow student told RIA Novosti that the girl brought the gun to the school in a tube for carrying papers. She told the state news agency that when the shooting began, two girls, including the twin sister of the 14-year-old shooter, came running into their classroom.

A preliminary investigation found that the armed girl fired a pump-action shotgun at her classmates, Russia’s Investigative Committee said.

Video shared by Ria Novosti showed children cowered in a classroom behind a door barricaded with upended desks and chairs.

The shooter's father was taken for questioning as a witness, RIA Novosti said. Investigators wanted to ask him how his daughter came into possession of the gun, the Telegram channel Shot reported.

The school's director was also being questioned about how the girl managed to bring the weapon into the school and about the state of the school's security systems, state news agency Tass reported.

The presidential children's rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, said on her Telegram channel that she was overseeing the care of the wounded children.

In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Lvova-Belova and Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing them of responsibility for the abduction of children from Ukraine.

Russia’s Interior Ministry said it was looking into a motive for the shooting, which is among several school shootings in the country in recent years.

In September 2022, a gunman opened fire in a school in central Russia, killing 17 people and wounding 24 others before shooting himself dead.

In April 2022, a man killed two children and a staff member at a kindergarten also in central Russia.

In May 2021, a man opened fire at students at his former high school in the Russian city of Kazan, killing nine people including seven children.

In 2018, an 18-year-old student in Russian-occupied Crimea killed 20 people in a mass shooting at a college.

Agencies