LAST UPDATE | 27 Sep 2022

MORE THAN A dozen people wounded in a school shooting in central Russia will be taken to Moscow for further treatment, authorities said, a day after a gunman killed 17 people and wounded 24 others.

Health minister Mikhail Murashko said a medical evacuation is planned for 13 children and two adults. He said three are in critical condition.

The shooting yesterday took place at School No 88 in Izhevsk, a city 600 miles east of Moscow in the Udmurtia region.

The gunman, a 34-year-old former pupil of the school, killed himself after the attack.

Russia’s Investigative Committee identified him as Artyom Kazantsev and said he was wearing a black T-shirt bearing “Nazi symbols”.

No details about his motives have been released, and an investigation is under way, but local officials said he was registered as a patient at a psychiatric facility.

The government of Udmurtia said 17 people, including 11 children, were killed in the shooting. According to the Investigative Committee, 24 other people, including 22 children, were wounded.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the shooting as “a terrorist act” and said President Vladimir Putin has given all the necessary orders to the relevant authorities.

Russia’s National Guard said Kazantsev used two non-lethal handguns adapted to fire real bullets. The guns were not registered with authorities.

Izhevsk, a city of 640,000, is west of the Ural mountains in central Russia.

School shootings are not common in Russia, but have become more frequent in recent years.

A gunman killed six people in a university in Perm a year ago, and months before that, another attacker opened fire at a school in the city of Kazan, killing seven students and two teachers with a registered weapon.

A student at a college in the Russia-annexed Crimean peninsula killed 20 students and himself in 2018.

Russian authorities last year sought to tighten gun regulations after the shootings.