At least four people, including two children, were killed after a gunman opened fire at a kindergarten in Russia's Ulyanovsk region on Tuesday, the Interfax news agency reported.
A representative of regional authorities confirmed the attack as well as the number of people who were killed. "We confirm the shooting and that there are four bodies," the authorities said. A source in law enforcement informed the news agency TASS that there also were two children who were killed in the shooting and that the incident may have been a result of a "domestic conflict."
The head of the Ulyanovsk region information department, Dmitry Kamal, told Agence France-Presse (AFP), that investigators were at work to gather more information from the crime scene. Kamal stated that there the ages of the young victims who died were not known, but an estimation could be made between three and six years old.
Telegram channel Baza, which has sources in Russian law enforcement, explained the unfortunate happening. The shooter, armed with an Izh-27 double-barrelled shotgun, was seen walking inside the kindergarten during nap time, when there was no guard on duty.
Former governor of the region, Lawmaker Sergei Morozov, further stated that while a young teacher was wounded in the shooting, another was killed. Following the firing, the shooter also committed suicide. According to RIA Novosti news agency, the two children who died were born in 2016 and 2018.
This is not the first time an attack in an educational institute has taken place in Russia. Just last year, two separate gun attacks, one at a school in the city of Kazan and another at a university in Perm, happened. This pushed lawmakers to review and strictly monitor laws regulating access to guns.
