Kerch Polytechnic College massacre

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Kerch Polytechnic College massacre began at about 10:02 on the morning of the 17th of October 2018, in the Crimean city of Kerch. It became the deadliest school shooting in Russia or Ukraine since the 2004 Beslan school siege. The attacker was not a stranger who forced his way in from outside. He was an 18-year-old student of the college itself, in his fourth year.

  In the weeks that followed, officials, investigators and grieving families asked the same hard questions. How was an 18-year-old able to obtain a gun in the first place? Why did it take so long to stop him? Was he truly alone, or did someone else shape his plans? And what happened to the young people who later looked to him as a model?

  12912

• 2. Inside the Corridors

  ›

  On the 13th of October 2018, four days before the attack, the gunman bought 150 rounds at a gun shop. He already owned a shotgun. On the 17th he walked into the college building with both.

  Multiple witnesses described him strolling through the corridors, firing at students and staff without picking targets. At least 30 shots were fired. He also shot at computer monitors, locked doors and fire extinguishers.

  A large nail bomb went off during the attack. Local police said they later deactivated more explosives on the campus. To this day it has not been made clear which victims died from the bombing and which from gunfire.

  Survivors said the whole ordeal lasted more than 15 minutes, a span that would raise hard questions about the response.

  3512192029

• 3. Waiting for Help

  ›

  A police station stands across the street from the college, within 300 metres of its doors. Eyewitnesses nonetheless disagreed about how long officers took to respond, with estimates ranging from 10 to 15 minutes.

  CNN reported that the state television channel Russia-24 had said 200 military personnel were sent to the scene. The attack itself ended in the college library, where the gunman took his own life.

  The college's surveillance cameras recorded the violence. Graphic footage was posted on the YouTube channel and website of the news programme Vesti.Krym, then removed from both shortly afterwards.

  In the first hours, survivors told conflicting stories. Some spoke of a huge explosion, while others described only gunfire and grenades.

  The official count would settle later, and it would be told name by name.

  2021121417

• 4. The Dead and the Wounded

  ›

  Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee reported that fifteen students and five staff members had died, and that most of the victims were teenagers. Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova told reporters that 67 people were wounded. Ten were in critical condition, and five of those were in comas.

  Svetlana Baklanova, 57, was the college's deputy director for academic affairs and a mathematics teacher. Her daughter Anastasia Baklanova, 26, headed information and career guidance work. Both were killed.

  Alexander Moiseenko, 46, taught computer science and was the curator of the gunman's own study group. Larisa Kudryavtseva, 62, led the department of chemical-engineering and mechanical disciplines. Lyudmila Ustenko, 65, was the college secretary.

  The students ranged from 15 to 21 years old. Vladislav Verdibozhenko and Sergey Stepanenko were both 15. Alexey Lavrinovich, 19, had been the attacker's classmate.

  Crimean State Council speaker Vladimir Konstantinov announced that families of the victims would receive 1 million rubles from the Russian federal budget. Preliminary discussions also pointed to another 1 million rubles from the local budget.

  In the fall of 2019, media reports added one more name. Olga Nikolaevna Grishchenko, 61, who taught economics at the college, died nine months after the attack, having survived multiple wounds to her abdomen and a series of surgeries. Crimea's education ministry said her death was not directly related to her injuries and urged people not to link it to the attack.

  3025263133

• 5. The Gunman

  ›

  Vladislav Igorevich Roslyakov was born on the 2nd of May 2000. When he was around ten, his parents separated after his father suffered a severe head injury. The father became disabled, began drinking, and abused his son, the boy's mother and other relatives.

  At school Roslyakov showed little interest and earned poor grades. He had few friends. His hobbies were weapons and video games. In 2015 he enrolled at the college to train as an electrician.

  There his fascination with explosives and weapons grew. He began bringing a knife bayonet to class. Once he sprayed pepper spray in a classroom and could not explain why.

  His mother, a Jehovah's Witness, restricted his social life. She searched his pockets and would not let him go to the cinema. She allowed him a computer only after he turned 16.

  On the eve of the attack, neighbours said, he burned a Bible in which he had highlighted verses. He burned his mobile phone and other books with it. In the days before, he had told people he did not believe in an afterlife.

  A friend claimed he hated the polytechnic intensely and had vowed revenge on his teachers. There were also reports that he may have been bullied. On social media he wrote about other people's ignorance, the lack of purpose in his life, mass shootings and suicide.

  Since about 2016 he had belonged to online communities devoted to serial and mass killers. Surveillance footage shows him in a white T-shirt printed with the Russian word "НЕНАВИСТЬ", which means hatred. He carried an eight-shot Hatsan Escort Aimguard pump-action shotgun.

  His outfit resembled that of Eric Harris, one of the two attackers at the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. That led to speculation of a copycat crime. Some Russian tabloids said he belonged to fan clubs for Harris and Dylan Klebold, and that he told friends it would be good to have a massacre.

  How he got his hands on a weapon, though, became its own investigation.

  3637394048

• 6. A Legally Owned Gun

  ›

  Early reports of terrorism in Kerch sent many Russian politicians and media outlets looking across the border. They suggested that "Ukrainian saboteurs" were responsible and that Kyiv was to blame. Those views shifted as more information emerged.

  What emerged was uncomfortable. In 2018 Roslyakov had obtained a weapon permit. He had completed the legally required training on weapon security and submitted every document, including a medical report. He attended a shooting club from time to time, and he bought his ammunition legally. Others began asking whether he had been checked carefully enough.

  Investigators also wanted to know where a teenager found 30,000 to 40,000 rubles for the shotgun. They wanted to know where he learned to use it. Russia's Investigative Committee first classified the case as terrorism. It later changed the charges to murder of two or more persons in a generally dangerous way, plus illegal acquisition and carrying of explosives. It also ordered a psychiatric evaluation of Roslyakov after his death.

  On the 18th of October, Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov said the gunman might have had an accomplice. Police, he said, were searching for the person who was "coaching" him. On the 9th of November 2018, the Investigative Committee concluded that Roslyakov had acted alone.

  But a hacked online account had already offered a glimpse into his own words.

  5955416010

• 7. The Deleted Page

  ›

  On the night of the 4th of November 2018, a deleted page on the Russian social network VKontakte was hacked. It had been registered under the name "Anatoly Smirnov" and belonged to Roslyakov. Hackers posted his private correspondence online, and anyone could view the page's subscriptions, saved photos and saved music.

  In those messages he complained that his peers did not understand him. He wrote that he did not want to live. He said his parents had "decided everything for him", and he wrote that he hated his college.

  One line looked ahead with grim sarcasm. He wrote that he would "arrange a great graduation" for himself.

  6465434553

• 8. Blame at Home

  ›

  Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov announced four days of mourning. Yet the question of who was responsible quickly turned political. Even after investigators found a lone attacker, Vladimir Konstantinov said the gunman could not have prepared alone. "On the ground, he acted alone, that is already known and established," he said. But he added that in his opinion and that of his colleagues, this "reprobate" could not have carried out the preparations by himself.

  Sergei Mikhailovich Smirnov, deputy head of the Federal Security Service, said the security services needed greater control over the Internet. On state television, the political analyst Sergey Mikheyev blamed "Western subculture". He said it builds its matrix on the cult of violence and called that "a purely American approach".

  President Vladimir Putin spoke at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi. He said the attack appeared to be a result of globalisation, social media and the Internet. "Everything started with the tragic events in schools in the US," he said, adding that Russia was not creating healthy content for young people.

  Some observers read this as Russia blaming the West. The Irish Times noted that Russian leaders, with Putin's own past as head of the Kremlin and the FSB, are suspicious of the internet and social media. It said they see them as Western-dominated technologies that can stir up dissent and street protests.

  Abroad, the reactions took a different shape.

  Leaders of Armenia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Thailand, the United Kingdom and Venezuela sent condolences. So did the Council of Europe's Secretary General, Thorbjørn Jagland, and the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres.

  Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also offered condolences, describing the victims as Ukrainian citizens. He said the Prosecutor General's Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea had opened criminal proceedings for an act of terrorism.

  Some newspapers labelled the attack "Russia's Columbine", after the 1999 American school massacre. Steven Rosenberg argued that it should not have been surprising. By his count, five attacks in Russian schools earlier in 2018 had already injured a number of children.

  A Telegraph article likewise reported half a dozen school attacks in Russia that year. It claimed they had involved knives and traumatic pistols rather than high-powered firearms.

  Back in Kerch, the first reactions were not statements but flowers.

  On the 23rd of October 2018, students returned to their studies. Checkpoints at the entrances confirmed each person's identity. An examination of the damaged building, according to a spokesperson for the Rostov Region Directorate of the Russian Emergency Ministry, found no danger of collapse.

  Hundreds of people gathered at memorials across Russia and other countries. In Moscow, the memorial in the Alexander Garden was decorated with flowers. Outside the school, residents and survivors built a makeshift memorial and left flowers and toys.

  An open memorial and funeral took place in Kerch's central square. Around 20,000 people were estimated to have attended the public funeral. Aksyonov addressed the crowd. "We don't want to talk, we want to weep," he said. He told them that the history of Crimea would be divided in two, before and after the 17th of October. "We need to be strong, we need to be brave," he said.

  Within a year, that division would be measured in other schools, in other towns.

  On the 28th of May 2019, a 15-year-old student named Daniil Pulkin attacked his school in Volsk, in Russia's Saratov region. He was obsessed with Roslyakov. A girl was seriously wounded, and in August 2020 Pulkin was sentenced to seven years in a juvenile facility.

  On the 27th of October 2019-18-year-old Boris Banin was detained in Zaraysk, in the Moscow region. Investigators said he belonged to an online group devoted to the "Kerch shooter". For a year he had been planning an attack on his technical college in Lukhovitsy. He also admired the Islamic State, and classmates complained that he watched its execution videos in class. The administration did not expel him. In 2020 he was sentenced to six years in prison.

  On the 18th of February 2020, according to the FSB, two of "Roslyakov's followers", born in 2003 and 2004, were detained in Kerch. They were accused of preparing attacks on their school and college. In November 2021 the older received four years and the younger seven.

  On the 12th of October 2020-18-year-old Daniil Monakhov killed four people in a village near Nizhny Novgorod. The Investigative Committee called him "Roslyakov's follower". He used a Hatsan Escort shotgun, the same brand as Roslyakov's but a different model. In May 2021, Ilnaz Galyaviev attacked a gymnasium in Kazan. Investigators said he "copied the actions of Vladislav Roslyakov" and others from a "destructive subculture".

  The influence reached beyond Russia. The attacker in the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting posted a video showing a magazine that listed six mass shooters, Roslyakov among them. In the Jakarta school bombing, Muhammed Nazriel Fadhel Hidayat wore a T-shirt with the word "НЕНАВИСТЬ". He wrote Roslyakov's name on his airsoft guns among those of other killers. The bomb he set off during Friday prayers injured 96 students.

  On the 2nd of February 2026, the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group foiled a school attack plan in Calabarzon. One of the confiscated shirts bore "НЕНАВИСТЬ" and "Natural Selection". The government's cybercrime body then gave Roblox a 30-day ultimatum to comply with child protection laws or face a possible block.

  On the 11th of February 2026, a 17-year-old opened fire at his college in Anapa, in Krasnodar Krai. A security guard managed to block the entrance and was killed, but the student never got inside. He was detained at the scene. Before the attack, he had posted photos and videos of earlier attackers on social media, Roslyakov among them.

  8384859698