Russian university shooting: Deaths reported after a gunman opened fire on a university campus in Perm, Siberia

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At least eight people have been killed and several others injured in a shooting at a university campus in Perm, 700 miles east of Moscow in Russia’s Ural Mountains.

In chaotic scenes captured on shivering cellphones, a young gunman approached Building 8, a central hall housing the College of Geography, shortly after 11:30 a.m. local time. Desperate students jumped out of the first floor windows of the building. Dozens were reportedly holed up in classrooms, using tables and chairs to close doors.

After 12 noon local time, police authorities announced that they had detained the gunman. Dmitriy Makhonin, the governor of the region, later said that he had died.

And local media identified him as 18-year-old Timur Bekmansurov. In a social media post written just before the attack, Bekmansurov explained the process for obtaining a shooting license and a weapon – apparently successfully passing psychological tests – and said he chose the university because it “made a huge mistake” four years ago.

The text appears to show a young man in a disturbed psychological state.

“No matter how long I know myself, I always thought about death,” the letter reads. “I don’t know how much I can kill, but I will do everything to take as many as I can.”

Mass shootings are a relatively rare event in Russia due to strict gun controls. But it appears to be on the rise. In May of this year, a student in Kazan attacked his former school, killing nine. This followed a major attack three years earlier in Kerch, Crimea, when 18-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov killed 20 fellow students.

This was the largest shooting incident since the terrorist attack in Beslan in 2004, in which 333 people were killed, many of them young men.

More to track

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