A Russian conscript soldier killed three fellow servicemen at a military base near the city of Voronezh on Monday after attacking them with an axe and a handgun, Russian authorities said.
Russian security officials located and detained the suspect – identified as private Anton Makarov, 20 – following a massive manhunt in the vicinity of the Baltimore military airfield near Voronezh, located about 310 miles south of Moscow.
“[O]n November 9, 2020 at 5:30 a.m. Makarov, in order to take possession of a service weapon, using an ax, killed an officer, after which he shot his colleagues, two of whom were killed, one was wounded,” Russia’s federal Investigative Committee said in a statement Monday.
An anonymous source told Russia’s Interfax news agency that the shooting incident was sparked by an altercation between Makarov and an officer during a morning inspection at the military base.
“The soldier ‘grabbed a handgun’ from the officer’s holster and fired,” Interfax reported.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) quoted unnamed sources as saying that Makarov “argued with a major, snatched the officer’s handgun, and shot him. Makarov then fired at a corporal and a private who rushed to assist the major.”
Russia’s Western Military District denied that such an altercation between Makarov and an officer took place prior to the shooting, according to the Moscow Times. Investigators from Russia’s Investigative Committee have launched an official probe into the incident and are currently interrogating Makarov, according to the newspaper.
“Doctors at a military hospital in Voronezh said a soldier who sustained injuries in the shooting was being treated at the medical facility,” Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported.
Over 100 members of Russia’s national guard, Rosgvardia, participated in the manhunt to locate Makarov, which also included the use of helicopters and drones.
Monday’s shooting at the Voronezh airfield was the second such incident at a Russian military base in just over a year. Human rights activists say that Russian army conscripts are often subjected to brutal hazing rituals by fellow servicemen.
At a military base in Siberia in October 2019, a Russian private shot eight fellow soldiers dead and wounded two others. “Investigations revealed that the incident was triggered by bullying,” according to RFE/RL.
The man convicted in the shooting “said earlier this year that he had been left with no other course of action after conscripts turned his life into a living ‘hell’,” according to Reuters.
Russian men between the ages of 18-27 are legally required to serve one year in the army under state law.
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