A total of four people are reportedly in a 'grave condition' after a 17-year-old pupil in Russia went on a knife rampage at his high school
A RUSSIAN student is alleged to have gone on a knife rampage at a high school and attacked classmates before setting his teacher on fire.
Artyom Tagirov is also accused of stabbing his computer science teacher Ekaterina Pershina, 29, according to reports.
The 17-year-old poured flammable liquid on her and set fire to her and the classroom at School Number One in Sterlitamak in oil-rich Bashkortostan, it has been claimed.
Two girls were also attacked with one jumping from a window to escape the horrific incident, said local accounts.
The teacher and teenage girls are now in hospital.
After the attack, the boy was reported to have tried to slit his own throat.
Police and paramedics said Tagirov was alive and also rushed to hospital.
All four are in a “grave condition”.
Smoke was seen pouring from the school building.
A video showed shocked students who had been evacuated from their classes in the industrial city.
Some are comforting each other.
Mother Natalia Malyatova said: "My daughter is in the school No 1.
“She says that a boy from the ninth grade came to the lesson, stabbed a computer science teacher and three kids.
“Then set the classroom on fire.
“And one girl jumped out of the window, from the second floor.”
“Four injured people were taken to a hospital in the city of Sterlitamak, three of them children,” said local Health Ministry official Svetlana Kuskarbekova.
“They are in grave condition.
“Updates on the injuries will be provided.”
The teacher was understood to be undergoing surgery.
She has stab wound of stomach and chest, it was reported.
Two schoolgirls are also receiving medical care.
One reportedly jumped from the window to escape the carnage.
On the alleged attacker’s social media, are bloody images with messages such as "Hatred" and "I'm filled with rage. I hate myself so f***ing much. I'm so close to a breakdown. I'm having a breakdown."
Two hours before the attack he posted a video about the Columbine school massacre in the US in 1999 in which 15 died.
Shocking pictures show the burned classroom with bloodstains on the floor, along with other disturbing images posted previously on the suspect’s social media.
Tagirov is seen wearing a Nazi swastika.
He had as many as 100 videos related to the Columbine massacre on his social media, it was revealed.
This is bound to raise concerns over the failure of the Russian police and security services to spot the potential risk.
Other similar cases in Russia have been linked to the alleged teenage perpetrators’ obsession with the American case.
And Tagirov allegedly wrote messages clearly indicating he intended to stage an attack.
In an exchange with his friend Artur, he posted in January: "I'm preparing to eliminate people.”
Artur asked: "When?"
Tagirov replied: "Don't know, maybe in spring."
In March, he allegedly posted: “Soon there will be stabbings… I thought that someone would stop me, but no…"
Another missed chance to spot his violent aim was yesterday when Tagirov on his social media warned a friend not to come to school today.
Using the nickname “nightmare”, which she did not initially recognise, he told her: “Do not come to school tomorrow'.
Friend: “Who are you?”
Tagirov: “A man. I told you all I wanted. Bye.”
Friend: “Emm, I will go anyway.”
Tagirov: “Your choice.’”
Friend: “And what will happen?”
Tagirov: “Surprise.”
An anonymous student gave a chilling account of today’s horror.
he said: “I was late for school and went to the second floor, where I heard the screams.
“I got concerned and rushed there.
"I heard: 'Help, help!' and saw people running.
“Then I saw near the computer science class that the teacher was standing all in blood.
“The attacker came out of the room, which was all in smoke.
“He ran at me and a teacher distracted him, so he chased her.
“I rushed to the security guards screaming: ‘Call the firefighters and police.’
Russia has suffered several school bloodbaths in recent months.
Investigators are probing indications that in all cases the perpetrators approved of the Columbine attack in America and possibly aimed to emulate it.
In January, student suspect Anton Bichivin, 16, firebombed a literature class, cracking open the heads of two pupils and a teacher at a school in the Siberian region of Buryatia.
Five other were injured.
The same month nine pupils and “hero” teacher Natalia Shagulina suffered knife wounds when two teenagers went on the rampage in a classroom in the Urals city of Perm.
In September last year, student Mikhail Pivnev, then 15, threw smoke bombs and struck teacher Lyubov Kalmykova, 39, with an axe at a school near Moscow, said police.
Law enforcement have been checking possible Nazi group links to the attacks.
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