February 14, 2026

Kids with Knives, Guns, and Fire


Kids with Knives, Guns, and Fire
A typical Russian schoolroom.

Authorities are concerned about the rising incidence of violence in Russian schools.

On February 3, violent attacks occurred in two Russian schools: in Ufa, a student opened fire with an airsoft gun at a teacher and classmates, while in Kodinsk, a girl attacked a classmate with a knife.

On February 4, in Krasnoyarsk, a female student doused another student with gasoline and set him on fire.

Shortly before this, on January 22, in Nizhnekamsk, a 13-year-old teenager attacked a janitor.

While typically participants in these kind of incidents only sustain injuries, at the end of 2025, there were two fatal tragedies. In Odintsovo, Moscow region, a 15-year-old schoolboy stabbed a security guard and killed a ten-year-old boy. And in the Tuva Republic, in the village of Kyzhyk Mazhalyk, a 17-year-old college student entered a school and killed a peer, also with a knife.

According to the Russian education media outlet Mel, from 2024 to February 2026, there have been 18 attacks by students and graduates in schools. Most of the attacks, 10 of them, occurred in 2025. Yet, solely in terms of the number of incidents, 2026 has already caught up with the whole of 2024. To drive the point home: On February 11, a shooting at a vocational school in Anapa killed one and left two injured.

When discussing the causes of “an epidemic of violence in schools,” official sources look for specific situations, long-standing conflicts, and the spread of bullying practices. Authorities claim that the neuroticization of children is caused by the internet, video games, and “excessively liberal attitudes.”

“Russian society, and especially its adolescent and youth segment, is in urgent need of a spiritual and psychological paradigm that would satisfy the need for a higher purpose and a constructive ideology,” said Nina Ostanina, head of the State Duma Committee for Family Protection.

Others argue that authorities are to blame for first legalizing violence, then teaching children how to handle weapons, and then themselves seek to solve conflicts through force and war, and then, when youth begin to apply these skills, it becomes an excuse to intensify repressive measures. For instance, the National Anti-Terrorism Committee has recommended that teachers monitor teenage groups on social media, while the State Duma is discussing whether it might be time to ban social media entirely.

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