- According to the Russian Defense Ministry, 11 soldiers were killed at a firing range.
- The ministry declared Saturday’s incident terrorist, and claimed that two of the perpetrators were killed by returning fire.
- Russia claimed that the men were from an unnamed ex-Soviet republic and had fired on soldiers while they were practicing target practice.
MOSCOW (AP) — Two men fired at soldiers on a Russian military firing range near Ukraine on Saturday, killing 11 and wounding 15 before being slain themselves, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
In a statement, the ministry stated that the shooting took places in the Belgorod area in southwestern Russia which borders Ukraine. The ministry stated that two former Soviet republic men fired upon volunteer soldiers during practice on target and were later killed by their own fire.
The incident was called a terrorist attack by the ministry.
The shooting comes amid a hasty mobilization ordered by President Vladimir Putin to beef up Russian forces in Ukraine — a move that triggered protests and caused hundreds of thousands to flee Russia.
Putin stated Friday that 220,000 reservists were already called up to help him recruit 300,000. Putin promised that the mobilization would be completed in two weeks.
The mobilization was hampered from the beginning, as authorities issued confusing signals about who should be called up to serve in a country that lists almost all of its citizens as reservists.
Even though the Russian leader declared that only people who had recently served in the military would be subject to the call-up, activists and rights groups reported military conscription offices rounding up people without any army experience — some of whom were also unfit for service for medical reasons.
Some of the recently called-up reservists posted videos in which they were forced to sleep on the floor, or even outside, and given rusty guns before being sent to war zones.
Russian media reports claimed that some of those mobilized went to war without proper training, and were then killed.
Authorities acknowledged the poor organization of the mobilization and promised to improve it.
