Military veteran shot Covid-19 'believers' – media

A man who killed two people and injured four others in a shooting at a Moscow municipal building allegedly singled out victims he thought were “believers” in Covid-19, Russian media has reported in the wake of the massacre.

On Wednesday, Moscow daily Kommersant reported that the accused, named as Sergey Glazov, said he had made a combat pistol modified to shoot rounds of live ammunition to protect himself from the “criminal society born from the fictitious coronavirus infection.”

The 45-year-old military veteran is said to have gone to the multi-functional public service center in the Ryazansky district in the south-east of the city, around 12km from Red Square, on Tuesday to obtain a passport. The man was allegedly approached by an employee of the building, Vladimir Shemenov, who then asked him to wear a medical mask in line with Russia’s current coronavirus guidelines.

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In response to the request, Glazov attacked the member of staff with pepper spray, took out the gun, and shot him at point-blank range. The assailant then killed security guard Aleksey Ruzlev and unleashed a volley of bullets on others in the facility, injuring four others, including a 10-year-old child.

The detained man claimed he shot other people not involved in the conflict thinking that they too “believe in the coronavirus infection.” Glazov still had two dozen cartridges left in his possession, and had his weapon not failed, many more people could have been injured or killed, Kommersant writes. The suspect is now reportedly awaiting a psychological assessment.

Shortly after the attack, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin took to Twitter, offering his “condolences to the victims and the families of the victims.”

Russia was shaken by two shootings at educational institutions earlier this year. In September, a student at Perm State University, over 1,000km east of Moscow, killed at least six people and injured 28 others. Meanwhile, in May, a former pupil of a school in Kazan killed at least nine people and injured more than a dozen others.