Image copyright AFP Image caption Shocked mourners gathered at a makeshift shrine at the college

The deadly gun and bomb attack on a college in Crimea "appears to be a result of globalisation", Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

"On social media, on the internet, we see the creation of entire communities. Everything started with the tragic events in schools in the US," he said.

Fifteen students and five teachers were killed in Wednesday's attack on the technical college in Kerch.

Officials named the killer as Vladislav Roslyakov, 18, who took his own life.

He was a fourth-year student at the college in the city in Crimea - the southern peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014.

'People have lost limbs'

On Wednesday, a huge nail-bomb blast ripped through the college's cafeteria, before the killer stormed through the building, shooting people at close range with a pump-action hunting rifle.

Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said the explosion from a home-made device had showered people with shrapnel.

"Some victims' internal organs were ruptured, we're finding washers and ballbearings in their livers, intestines, blood vessels," she said.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Emergency crews respond to the attack

"Limbs have been amputated - people have lost feet and shins," she said.

Some of the critically injured were being transferred to hospitals as far away as Moscow.

The authorities in Crimea have declared three days of mourning. A prayer service was held for the victims at a makeshift shrine near the college.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Prayers were said for the victims near the college in Kerch

The rampage is the deadliest attack to have taken place in Crimea since the Russian annexation.

That Russian intervention - condemned by many Western powers - marked the start of a conflict pitting Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine against Ukrainian government forces.

What happened at the college?

The perpetrator is said to have run from room to room as he fired. Minutes earlier he had left a rucksack containing the nail-bomb in the cafeteria on the ground floor and detonated it remotely, Russian Channel One TV reported.

Photos later emerged in Russian media purportedly showing his body in the college library.

The TV report described a scene of devastation and mass panic after the blast. It said doors and windows were shattered in the entrance hall and on the first floor, above the cafeteria. Some students leapt out of the building from a height of 5m (16ft 5in).

Investigators later said they had found a second explosive device among the gunman's possessions and that it had been disarmed. He was also reported to have several packs of bullets and home-made petrol bombs.

BBC Russian spoke to witnesses, including Igor Zakharevsky. "I was at the epicentre of the first explosion, at the entrance, near the buffet," he said.

"I was in complete shock and one of my classmates started pulling me away. Then I heard several shots at intervals of two or three seconds. After a while there was another explosion."

Marina, an 18-year-old student at the college, said there was "a massive explosion, the windows began to rattle and everyone started screaming".

"We bolted out of the classroom and ran. There was complete pandemonium in the corridor," she said. "I saw a girl lying near the wall in an unnatural position, others lying on the floor covered in blood. Shots were being fired every five or six seconds.

The incident was first described as a "terrorist act", but Russia's investigative committee later reclassified it as "mass murder".

Image copyright AFP Image caption Fresh flowers for Kerch at Moscow's World War Two Hero Cities memorial

Spate of attacks

By Steve Rosenberg, BBC News, Moscow

Until now, if you had told people in Crimea there had been a mass school shooting, most would have thought you were talking about the United States. Now all that has changed.

The shooting spree in the Kerch Polytechnic has left the peninsula, annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, in shock. But should it come as such a surprise?

There have been five attacks in schools in Russia this year where a number of children were injured.

In Kerch, questions are already being asked: how did Vladislav Roslyakov manage to obtain a licence for a hunting weapon? And how was he able to launch such a deadly attack on his college?

What do we know about the alleged gunman?

His precise motives remain unclear. But there are suggestions the fourth-year student had developed a hostile attitude to the college.

Russia's RBC TV interviewed a friend who said Roslyakov "hated the technical school very much" and had vowed "revenge" on his teachers.

Image copyright PA Image caption Russian soldiers were deployed outside the school

It has emerged that he obtained a gun licence when he was 17. His parents are divorced.

Classmates said Roslyakov was very reserved and had long ago stopped using social networks.

College teacher Olga Mikhailichenko said he was "a hard-working student, very quiet". A neighbour was quoted as saying "he had no friends".

The college prepares students for engineering jobs and is reportedly well-equipped. But some students spoke of lax security there.</s>The toll rose to 19 on Wednesday afternoon, regional medical officials told TASS state news agency. They said 39 remained hospitalised after the attack on the college in the city of Kerch on the peninsula annexed from Ukraine in 2014

Nineteen people were killed and dozens more wounded, most of them teenagers, after a student opened fire in a technical college in Russian-annexed Crimea on Wednesday, the authorities said. The toll rose to 19 on Wednesday afternoon, regional medical officials told TASS state news agency. They said 39 remained hospitalised after the attack on the college in the city of Kerch on the peninsula annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Russia's Investigative Committee said the attack was carried out by 18-year-old student Vladislav Roslyakov. He was captured on security camera footage and later found dead with gunshot wounds. Roslyakov enrolled at the college in 2015, according to its website. RBK newspaper quoted an anonmyous fellow student as saying Roslyakov "really hated the college because of evil teachers and hinted he would take revenge on them."

Violent attacks on schools and colleges are extremely rare in Russia but there have been several high-profile cases recently with far fewer victims. The Investigative Committee, which probes major incidents, had initially classified the attack as an act of terror and described it as an explosion. But it later said it was investigating a mass murder after "this young man shot people dead in the college and then committed suicide," adding that all the victims died of gunshot wounds.

The attack had first been reported as an explosion and the Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee said an "unidentified explosive device" had gone off in the canteen. Committee spokesman Andrei Przhezdomsky said that Roslyakov's body was found next to a pump-action gun. Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov told Russian television: "It was a mass murder committed by one scumbag." The reported killer was a "student in the fourth year who was studying at the college.

His body was found in the college library," Aksyonov wrote on Facebook. A source in the emergency services told RIA Novosti state news agency that Roslyakov had legally acquired a gun licence. The Investigative Committee said most of the victims were teenagers. The college's website says it accepts students in the last three grades of school, from the age of 14. The regional health ministry said six of the injured were in an extremely serious condition and eight in a serious condition.

Aksyonov announced three days of mourning from Thursday over the "terrible tragedy". Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, said in televised comments that a "tragic event" had happened, speaking during talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. "It's already clear that it's a crime, the motive and possible versions for this tragedy are being carefully examined," Putin said.

"I want to express condolences to the relatives of the dead and express the hope that the injured recover as quickly as possible," the president said, calling for a minute's silence to mourn the victims. Kerch is linked to the Russian mainland by a bridge that Putin opened in May. Witnesses said that the attacker fired shots but also spoke of hearing an explosion. A student at the college who asked not to be named told AFP: "I was in a class when I heard shooting on the first floor." "When we all ran out into the corridor, there were others running and shouting that some guy with a machine gun was randomly shooting everyone in turn."

"Then a strong explosion went off, but thank God, I was already outside and saw our guys being thrown out of the windows by the explosive wave," he said, adding that part of the building collapsed. Another witness who gave his name as Sergei and who worked nearby said in a video on the Kerch.tv website that he heard "a bang and shots." Sergei, whose shirt was covered in blood, said victims "were taken away in public transport, in minibuses and buses, with two or three people in each ambulance."

"They are children and staff," the witness said. "I saw people without legs, without arms." Attacks by disaffected teenagers at their schools and colleges have hit the headlines recently in Russia. In January, a school student attacked a teacher and fellow students with an axe in Siberia and tried to set fire to the school building and to kill himself. In April, a school student stabbed a teacher and a fellow student in the Urals Mountains and then set fire to a classroom.

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever</s>At least 18 dead, including teenagers, in blast at college in Crimea that Russia suspects is terror attack

ABC NEWS – At least 18 people, most of them young, were killed and over 40 injured in a bomb and shooting attack at a college in Crimea that local officials said was carried out by a student.

Crimea’s president Sergey Aksyonov, said that the attacker was a 22-year-old student in the college’s fourth-year class, and that the student killed himself.

“The potential killer has shot himself; he has killed himself,” Aksyonov told the Russian state television channel, Russia 24.

Reports in the immediate aftermath of the attack at the state polytechnic college in the Black Sea city of Kerch on the eastern side of Crimea were chaotic, but the college’s director suggested that a bombing was accompanied by a shooting rampage.

“Someone burst in; they were running, throwing plastic bags with explosives. Then they were running with assault rifles — I don’t know with what — around the second floor, opening rooms and killing everyone they could find,” the college director, Olga Grebennikova told KerchNet, a local Crimean television station.

An explosion occurred after a homemade bomb packed with metal objects went off there, Russian investigators said.

Russian authorities initially said they were treating the incident as a terrorist attack but later reclassified it as murder.

The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that President Vladimir Putin has expressed his condolences to the victims and ordered emergency services to provide assistance.

About 200 soldiers and 10 military vehicles have been deployed to assist at the blast site at the school, TASS reported, citing local military officials.

Video and photos published by local Crimean media showed people being carried into several ambulances at the scene, and that some of the college’s windows appeared blown out. Russian state television showed video of military armored vehicles driving rapidly towards the college.

Crimea has been under Russia’s control since Moscow sent troops to seize the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.</s>The Latest on the Crimea school attack (all times local):

The local leader of the Crimean Peninsula says that authorities are looking for a possible accomplice in the shooting and bomb attack at a vocational school that killed 20 people and wounded dozens of others.

Authorities had previously said that it was a lone-wolf attack carried out by an 18-year-old student. Wednesday's attack in the city of Kerch was by far the worst by a student in Russia, raising questions about school security in the country.

Kremlin-appointed Crimean chief Sergei Aksyonov told Russian news agencies on Thursday that it is possible that the shooter had an accomplice. Aksyonov said that the shooter, identified as Vyacheslav Roslyakov, was alone in the school but added that authorities believe that there may have been someone who was helping him plot the attack.

Russia's health minister says at least 10 of the wounded in a shooting by a student at a vocational school in Crimea will be airlifted to hospitals in Russia.

An 18-year-old student went on a shooting rampage at the school on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, killing 19 people and wounding more than 50 others before killing himself. Wednesday's attack in the city of Kerch was by far the worst school shooting by a student in Russia.

Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova told Russian news agencies on Thursday that authorities are preparing to airlift at least 10 people with severe injuries to top Russian hospitals for surgery. Dozens more remain hospitalized in Kerch.</s>SIMFERAPOL: Eighteen people died and dozens more were wounded, mostly teenagers, on Wednesday (Oct 17) when a student opened fire at a college in Russian-annexed Crimea.

Speaking to journalists and parents of missing students in the city of Kerch, where the shooting took place, Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov said the death toll stood at 18 plus the killer.

He added that 53 people were injured in the attack. 12 of whom were in an extremely serious condition.



Russia's Investigative Committee named the shooter as 18-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov, a student at the college.

He was captured on security camera footage and later found dead with gunshot wounds in the college library.

Aksyonov said he had seen the body of the killer, whom he described as "not a Crimean, not even a person", adding that Roslyakov had acted alone.

Facing a crowd of angry parents, some of whom still did not know where their children were, Aksyonov said authorities were seeking to establish the gunman's motives: "What pushed this non-person to do this, I don't know."

He added that the fourth-year student had aroused no suspicion, saying teachers called him "peaceful."

But Roslyakov confirmed earlier reports that the teenager had acquired a gun license legally. and promised a transparent investigation with "no secrets".

According to the RIA Novosti agency, security forces raided Roslyakov's parents' home following the killings.

Russian authorities initially put out conflicting versions of what happened at the technical college in Kerch, on the peninsula annexed from Ukraine in 2014.



The attack was first reported as an explosion, with authorities saying an "unidentified explosive device" had gone off and classifying the incident as an act of terror.

A few hours later the Investigative Committee said the victims were killed by gunshots.

"A shooting took place after the explosion. The gunman had a hunting gun," Crimean official Igor Mikhailichenko said.

The attack was then reclassified as a murder.

"This is not a terrorist act. It's a mass killing committed by one scumbag," Aksyonov said earlier on state television.

The Investigative Committee said most of the victims were teenagers. According to the college's website, it accepts students in the last three grades of school, from the age of 14.

Aksyonov announced three days of mourning from Thursday for victims of the "terrible tragedy".

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, described the killings as a "tragic event", speaking during a joint news conference with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

"It's already clear that it's a crime, the motive and possible versions for this tragedy are being carefully examined," Putin said.

"I want to express condolences to the relatives of the dead and express the hope that the injured recover as quickly as possible," the president said, calling for a minute's silence to mourn the victims.

Witnesses said that the attacker fired shots but also spoke of hearing an explosion.

A student at the college who asked not to be named told AFP: "I was in a class when I heard shooting on the first floor."

"When we all ran out into the corridor, there were others running and shouting that some guy with a machine gun was randomly shooting everyone in turn."

"Then a strong explosion went off, but thank God, I was already outside and saw our guys being thrown out of the windows by the explosive wave," he said, adding that part of the building collapsed.

Another witness who gave his name as Sergei and who worked nearby said in a video on the Kerch.tv website that he heard "a bang and shots."

Sergei, whose shirt was covered in blood, said victims "were taken away in public transport, in minibuses and buses, with two or three people in each ambulance."

"They are children and staff," the witness said. "I saw people without legs, without arms."

Attacks by disaffected teenagers at their schools and colleges have hit the headlines recently in Russia.

In January, a school student attacked a teacher and fellow students with an axe in Siberia and tried to set fire to the school building and to kill himself.

In April, a school student stabbed a teacher and a fellow student in the Urals Mountains and then set fire to a classroom.</s>13 people have been killed after an explosive device filled with metal fragments went off in a college in Crimea.

The school's director told local media that after the blast a gunman went through the school killing anyone he could find, and that children's bodies were "everywhere".

Sergei Akysonov, the top Russian official for Crimea, said the attacker was a fourth-year student at the vocational college who killed himself after the attack.

Initial reports had said the blast, in the Black Sea city of Kerch, had been caused by a gas explosion.

Russia's investigative committee has said the device went off in the school's canteen, and that 50 people, the majority of them teenagers, are thought to have been injured.

"There are already lots of people in the emergency room, and in the operating theatre," an employee of the nearest hospital said.

Witnesses report that schools and nurseries are being evacuated across Crimea following the blast, and the school is being inspected for other possible bombs.

The head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, and Russian health minister Veronika Skvortsova have travelled to the area in order to support the injured.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that was deemed illegal the EU and US and that triggered global sanctions.</s>An 18-year-old student, who later killed himself, was initially believed to be the only one involved

Women light candles in memory of victims of shooting in the vocational college in Kerch, Crimea, in a church in St.Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018. An 18-year-old student strode into his vocational school in Crimea, Wednesday, then pulled out a shotgun and opened fire, killing 19 students and wounding more than 50 others before killing himself. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Authorities on the Crimean Peninsula were searching for a possible accomplice of the student who carried out a shooting and bomb attack on a vocational school, killing 20 people and wounding more than 50 others, an official said Thursday.

An 18-year-old student, who later killed himself, was initially believed to be the only one to have been involved in the carnage at the Kerch Polytechnic College on Wednesday. Authorities haven’t provided a motive for the shooting, and teachers and classmates described the attacker as a shy man who had few friends.

But Kremlin-appointed Crimean chief Sergei Aksyonov told Russian news agencies on Thursday that it is possible that the attacker, identified as Vyacheslav Roslyakov, had an accomplice.

“The point is to find out who was coaching him for this crime,” he said. “He was acting on his own here, we know that. But this scoundrel could not have prepared this attack on his own, in my opinion and according to my colleagues.”

Residents of the Black Sea city of Kerch brought flowers and toys to a makeshift memorial outside the school on Thursday morning. Many were in tears and struggled to speak.

Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Wednesday’s attack was by far the worst by a student in Russia, raising questions about school security in the country. The Kerch Polytechnic College had only a front desk with no security guards. Russia’s National Guard said Thursday that it has deployed officers and riot police to all schools and colleges in Kerch in the aftermath of the attack.

The death toll from the shooting climbed by one to 20 on Thursday after one of the wounded died in a hospital, and the first victim will be buried later in the day.

Dozens remain hospitalized in Kerch, and at least 10 people with severe injuries will be airlifted to top Russian hospitals for surgery, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said.

Most of the people killed died from gunshot wounds, and those who ended up hospitalized have injuries from a blast from an improvised explosive device that was packed with shrapnel.

“The kids’ muscles have been ‘minced’ with small metal objects,” Skvortsova said. “Those who have their organs ripped apart, we are finding metal balls in kidneys, intestines, in blood vessels. That is how powerful the blast was.”

Skvortsova spoke of the severity of injuries some of the victims have sustained.

“Some people have feet, lower legs missing,” she said.

The school attack in Kerch was the greatest loss of life in school violence in Russia since the Beslan attack by Chechen separatists in 2004, in which 333 people were killed during a three-day siege, many of them children, and hundreds of others were wounded.

Since Crimea’s annexation, Russian authorities have repeatedly warned of a terrorism threat coming from unnamed Ukrainian nationalists as well as ethnic Tatars, an indigenous Crimean people. But despite acts of public defiance and rallies, both groups haven’t been engaged in any violent activities in Crimea.

Russia has fairly strict gun legislation. Civilians can own only hunting rifles and smoothbore shotguns and must undergo significant background checks. Roslyakov had only recently received a permit to own a shotgun and bought 150 cartridges just a few days ago, according to local officials.

Asked about possible plans to further restrict gun ownership in Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged caution and said the government would wait for the results of the investigation.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.</s>MOSCOW — The Latest on the Crimea school attack (all times local):

The local leader of the Crimean Peninsula says that authorities are looking for a possible accomplice in the shooting and bomb attack at a vocational school that killed 20 people and wounded dozens of others.

Authorities had previously said that it was a lone-wolf attack carried out by an 18-year-old student. Wednesday's attack in the city of Kerch was by far the worst by a student in Russia, raising questions about school security in the country.

Kremlin-appointed Crimean chief Sergei Aksyonov told Russian news agencies on Thursday that it is possible that the shooter had an accomplice. Aksyonov said that the shooter, identified as Vyacheslav Roslyakov, was alone in the school but added that authorities believe that there may have been someone who was helping him plot the attack.</s>SIMFEROPOL - At least 19 people were killed and dozens more wounded, most of them teenagers, after an attack on a college in Russian-annexed Crimea on Wednesday, with conflicting versions referring to a lone shooter and a bomb.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said the attack was carried out by 18-year-old student Vladislav Roslyakov, who was captured on security camera footage carrying a gun in the technical college in Kerch and whose body was later found with gunshot wounds.

The Investigative Committee, which probes major incidents, had initially classified the attack as an act of terror, but later said it was investigating a mass murder after “this young man shot dead people in the college and then committed suicide,” adding that all victims died of gunshot wounds.

The attack had first been reported as an explosion, with Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee saying an “unidentified explosive device” had gone off. Committee spokesman Andrei Przhezdomsky said bomb squads were working “at the blast site”, adding the body of Roslyakov was found in the college next to a pump-action gun.

The Investigative Committee said 18 were killed in the attack which took place at around 12 noon (0900 GMT) on the peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow from Ukraine in 2014. However Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov told Russian Rossiya-24 television that the death toll had risen to 19, with more than 40 injured.

“The supposed killer shot himself, it’s a student in the fourth year who was studying at the college. His body was found in the library on the first floor,” Aksyonov wrote on Facebook.

The Investigative Committee said most of the victims were teenagers. The college’s website says it accepts students in the last three grades of school, from the age of 14.

Aksyonov announced three days of mourning from Thursday over the “terrible tragedy”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is currently in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, said in televised comments that a “tragic event” had happened and that “as a result of an explosion of an explosive device, people died and many are injured”.

He was speaking during talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and made the statement before the Investigative Committee said the crime was a mass shooting rather than a terrorist attack. “It’s already clear that it’s a crime, the motive and possible versions for this tragedy are being carefully examined,” Putin said.

“I want to express condolences to the relatives of the dead and express the hope that the injured recover as quickly as possible,” the president said, calling for a minute’s silence to mourn the victims. Kerch is linked to the Russian mainland by a bridge opened by Putin in May.

Witnesses said that the attacker fired shots but also spoke of hearing an explosion.

A student at the college who asked not to give his name told AFP that “I was in a class when I heard shooting on the first floor.”

“When we all ran out into the corridor, there were others running and shouting that some guy with a machine gun was randomly shooting everyone in turn.”

“Then a strong explosion went off, but thank God, I was already outside and saw our guys being thrown out of the windows by the explosive wave,” he said, adding that part of the building collapsed.

Another witness who gave his name as Sergei and who worked nearby said in a video on the Kerch.tv website that he heard “a bang and shots.”

Sergei, whose shirt was covered in blood, said victims “were taken away in public transport, in minibuses and buses, with two or three people in each ambulance.”

“They are children and staff,” the witness said. “I saw people without legs, without arms.”</s>Russian officials say Wednesday's attack on a school in Crimea in which at least 19 students were killed was not a terrorist attack, but a case of mass murder. They say video footage captured by a closed-caption camera shows a former student armed with a rifle enter the technical college in the Black Sea city of Kerch. Zlatica Hoke reports the suspect in the school shooting also was killed.
A double bombing-mass shooting attack leaves 20 dead and 74 others injured in a college in Kerch, Crimea. An 18-year-old student carried out the gun and bomb attack and then committed suicide. The attacker "hated the technical school very much" and had vowed "revenge" on his teacher.