Eight dead as gunman opens fire in Russian university

Eight people have been killed and at least 32 injured in a gun massacre carried out by a heavily-armed teenage shooter at a Russian university.

Terrified students were seen jumping from windows as 18-year-old Timur Bekmansurov went on the rampage at the Perm State University in Russia’s Ural mountains.

The lone gunman, who had earlier posted that he ‘liked causing pain to people’ was seen in chilling footage stalking the campus holding a clearly visible firearm while dressed in black combat gear.

His attack only came to an end when cops shot him down. Some reports said he was dead but others say he is in grave condition in hospital. 

Natalia Pechishcheva, a university spokesperson, said: ‘He was liquidated,’ suggesting he had been killed, although conflicting reports said he was detained after being wounded.

Footage purportedly from the scene showed him being shot by a police officer inside a building, and his prone body on the ground.

A later report from the Russian Investigative Committee said the gunman was in intensive care in an ‘extremely grave condition’. He sustained gunshot wounds to his chest and limbs, reports said. 

In messages sent by the suspect before the siege, the teenager was quoted saying he ‘liked causing pain to people’ and described himself as ‘unstoppable’. 

The perpetrator used a non-lethal gun, according to the Perm State University press service. Students and staff of the university locked themselves in rooms, and the university urged those who could leave the campus to do so. 

It is the second mass shooting at an education facility in Russia this year. 

Earlier media footage from the scene showed students jumping from first-floor windows to escape the building, landing heavily on the ground before running to safety.

Students built barricades out of chairs to stop the shooter from entering their classrooms, they said.

The gunman was identified as a student at the university, the Investigative Committee, that handles probes into major crimes, said.

‘There were about 60 people in the classroom. We closed the door and barricaded it with chairs,’ student Semyon Karyakin told Reuters.

Local media identified the gunman as the 18-year-old student who had earlier posted a social media photo of himself posing with a rifle, helmet and ammunition.

‘I’ve thought about this for a long time, it’s been years and I realised the time had come to do what I dreamt of,’ he said on a social media account attributed to him that was later taken down.

He indicated his actions had nothing to do with politics or religion but were motivated by hatred.

‘When the people saw the shooter and heard the shots, some managed to leave the building, others locked themselves in classrooms,’ said one eyewitness account.

Many students were seen jumping after climbing out of a second floor window.

The regional heath ministry said among those wounded were injuries both from the shooting and from trying to escape the building. 

The university flashed a message to frightened staff and students saying: ‘If you are currently inside the university, please, try to shut yourself from inside the room, and stay inside.

‘If you are on the campus, please leave if possible. If you are on the way to the university – TURN BACK’

The gunman shot a security guard on the way into the university, and a call to emergency services went unanswered, it was claimed.

‘I could have fooled every psychiatrist,’ the gunman said of a test to get his gun license. ‘At least I will feel alive for the last ten minutes of my life,’ the gunman wrote.

‘I detest myself as much as I test all of you.’

He said: ‘I want to leave as much pain in the world as I can so everyone I can’t kill will remember this day forever….

‘I will do all in my power to kill as many as I can. Only a few of you deserve to live.’ 

Suspected gunman Bekmansurov had studied at the university for 10 days since the start of the new academic year. He was in the Law Faculty and was training to become a forensic expert. 

Later reports said the shooter had died from police gunshot wounds.

Some reports said that eight had died in the university, but the Russian Investigative Committee so far confirmed five.

Fleets of ambulances arrived at the campus.

The shooter had been armed with a Turkish-made 12-caliber Huglu rifle.

President Vladimir Putin had been notified of the shooting, the Kremlin said, adding that the health and science ministers had been ordered to travel to Perm to coordinate assistance for the victims.

‘The president expresses sincere condolences to those who have lost family and loved ones as a result of this incident,’ Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Regional authorities said that classes at local schools, colleges and universities were cancelled on Monday.

The gunman’s messages suggest he had been planning a massacre for many months, but only recently decided to carry it out at the university. 

A social media message exchange between Tamara – not at the university – and her friend Anastasia highlight the terror as the gun ran amok at the university.

‘We are barricaded in the room, a man is walking around, shooting,’ wrote Anastasia.

‘Toma (Tamara), I’m scared. We are all scared …there are wounded here.’

Tarama tells her friend to stay quiet and asks if the police have arrived.

‘Yes, everyone arrived, but no-one has been detained yet,’ said Anastasia.

‘Everything is going to be alright ,’ writes Tamara. They didn’t find him yet…. I don’t know – I am scared.

‘Toma, this is a nightmare, I’m terrified. We are all crouched under the tables. The door has no lock, we put a chair against it.’

A male student called Denis was ‘sitting down there, holding the door’ against the gunman.

A female student said: ‘It was so awfully scary. I still see it in front of my eyes, him walking right towards us.’

An acquaintance of the shooter said he was ‘unsociable’ and had few friends, reported Readovka.

‘He was always very quiet,’ said the friend. We knew that he had interests in weapons and war, because he was usually the first to answer these questions in class.

‘He usually didn’t have much contact with anyone.

‘In history lessons, when they talked about terrorism and war, he was always interested in this. He was the first to answer, he knew more than all of us about terrorism and terrorist acts.’ 

The last such deadly attack took place in May 2021, when a 19-year-old gunman opened fire in his old school in the central Russian city of Kazan, killing nine people.

Investigators said that man suffered from a brain disorder. But he was deemed fit to receive a license for the semi-automatic shotgun he used in the attack.

On the day of that attack – one of the worst in recent Russian history – President Vladimir Putin called for a review of gun control laws.

In November 2019, a 19-year-old student in the far eastern town of Blagoveshchensk opened fire at his college, killing one classmate and injuring three other people before shooting and killing himself.

In October 2018, another teenage gunman killed 20 people at a Kerch technical college in Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

He was shown in camera footage wearing a similar T-shirt to Eric Harris, one of the killers in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in the US, which left 13 people dead.

The Crimea shooter was able to legally obtain a gun licence after undergoing marksmanship training and being examined by a psychiatrist.

The country’s FSB security service says it has prevented dozens of armed attacks on schools in recent years.

In February 2020 the FSB said it had detained two teenagers on suspicion of plotting an attack on a school in the city of Saratov with weapons and homemade explosives.

Authorities have claimed that young Russians are being increasingly exposed to negative influences online, especially from the West.