Gunman opens fire at school in Russia killing nine and leaving 20 injured

26 September 2022, 09:34 | Updated: 26 September 2022, 10:59

A gunman has opened fire at a school in central Russia, killing nine people and injuring twenty others.

The gunman opened fire at school No88 in Izhevsk, leaving pupils at the school and a security guard among the victims.

Several students are understood to have been injured after jumping from windows to escape the gunfire.

The gunman, who is believed to have been armed with two Makarov pistols and multiple magazines of ammunition, took his own life at the scene.

The Udmurtia branch of Russia's interior ministry said the gunman had killed himself and that 20 people were wounded.

News agency RIA cited Governor Alexander Brechalov of the Udmurtia region, of which Izhevsk is the capital, as saying that an unidentified man entered the school and killed a security guard.

He said that there were dead and wounded among the school students.

Five pupils, two teachers and two guards were killed.

Local media reports the gunman was a mobilized soldier who didn’t want to go to Ukraine to fight. Footage on social media showed the suspected gunman's body after he was shot. The man is wearing black with a red swastika painted on his chest.

The school, in Izhevsk in central Russia has almost 1,000 pupils and 80 teachers. Izhevsk itself is a city of about 650,000 people.

In a separate incident a gunman left a Russian army enlistment officer fighting for life after opening fire in a Siberian enlistment office "after his best friend" was called up to fight in Ukraine.

There were also reports of civilians carrying out molotov cocktail attacks on draft centres in protest over Putin's forced enlistment of civilians.

This story is being updated