Executive Summary:
- Russians talked about violence in schools as “Columbines,” the 1991 attack in a U.S. school, until recently, as something foreign to their own experience. The Kremlin has exploited this attitude to avoid taking serious action other than against the internet.
- Attacks in Russian schools, ranging from bullying to armed violence, have become so common in recent months that many Russians are demanding the government act, with some even pulling children out of school.
- None of the steps that the Russian government has taken have stemmed the increase in the number and violence of such attacks. This disturbing trend seems certain to continue, resulting in more tragedies.
Until recently, Russians used the term “Columbines,” the 1991 attack in a U.S. school, to talk about school violence, implying that such attacks were fundamentally alien to their country (Window on Eurasia, February 13). The Kremlin has unsurprisingly exploited such longstanding attitudes by placing the blame for problems in Russian schools on foreigners rather than doing much to address them (Window on Eurasia, December 21). In recent months, however, attacks in Russian schools, ranging from bullying to armed attacks, have become widespread. Few Russians now accept the notion that the problem is all the work of foreigners, with many demanding the government do something and some even pulling their children out of school to protect them (The Moscow Times, February 5, 19; Radio Svoboda, February 5; IA Rex, February 19). None of the steps that the Russian government or Russian parents have taken so far have stemmed the increase in the number and violence of such attacks. Ever more Russians are connecting the dots and blaming domestic developments and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine (Window on Eurasia, July 3, 2019, February 7). As a result, this disturbing trend in Russian schools seems certain to continue, leading to more tragedies first in schools and then more broadly (Window on Eurasia, March 28).
Bullying has long been a problem in Russian schools due to ethnic, class, or age distinctions. Until recently, armed attacks by pupils against one another were sufficiently rare that Russians comforted themselves with the thought that such violence was a feature of other countries (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 11). When attacks did occur in Russian schools, most saw them as something rare. Moscow exploited that assumption and blamed violence in Russian schools on foreign agitators. Officials used such violence as justification for imposing even more restrictions on the internet despite Russian scholars concluding that the school attacks have domestic rather than foreign roots (Telegram/@anthro_fun, reposted at Echo FM, December 16, 2025).
Over the last six months, bullying in Russian schools, especially on an ethnic or class basis, has intensified (Window on Eurasia, February 13). Violent attacks have risen dramatically. In 2025, there were around 25 violent attacks on schools. This year, the frequency of such attacks has increased to the point that, if the current trend continues, there could be upwards of 100 before the start of 2027 (IA Rex, February 19). Moreover, these attacks are spreading across the country. At least a third of the cases now involve the use of guns that have become far easier for young people to get. Such weapons are bleeding back from the war against Ukraine and are more often used because Kremlin propaganda has legitimized violence as a means of solving disputes (see EDM, November 29, 2022, June 26, November 6, 2025; The Moscow Times, February 19).
Some Russians have responded by pulling their children out of public educational institutions and homeschooling them. Parents object to the militarization of schools and fear their children may become the victims of violent attacks (The Moscow Times, February 5). An even larger number of Russian parents and experts have begun to consider the domestic sources of such violence in the schools. They have begun to blame the government for failing to provide enough protection to school children. There simply are not enough police available anymore to guard the schools. Parents and experts also blame the reduction of funding to the schools, meaning that those institutions are left without the guards and psychologists needed to respond to the problems of bullying and violence. Some officials have begun to concede that these complaints are legitimate and argue that Moscow must take more steps to protect the country’s children (see EDM, March 11, 2025; Nezavizimaya Gazeta, February 11; Novaya Gazeta; Yesli Byt’ Tochnym, February 18).
Russians increasingly recognize that the underlying reasons for the rise in school violence are deeper and more intractable. Even if Moscow increased spending on education and police, blocked the internet more effectively, and got a handle on the influx of guns from the war against Ukraine, Russians will continue to be confronted by this problem because of other factors. Economic difficulties are causing a rise in social problems. The government’s Russian nationalist program and intensification of attacks on migrants and indigenous ethnic minorities are leading to a rise of ethnic problems (Natsional’nyi Aktsent, January 20; see EDM, February 3). The Kremlin’s propaganda about the war is perhaps unwittingly increasing the acceptance that violence is an appropriate response to anger (Telegram/@v_pastukhov reposted at Ekho FM, February 4; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 11). These developments could continue to fuel attacks in the schools and overwhelm the government’s underfunded but much-ballyhooed campaign to combat bullying and violence in the schools (Natsional’nyi Aktsent, March 21, 2025).
Addressing all these causes would require a fundamental reorientation of the Russian government and enormous sums of money that Moscow currently does not have, given its military campaigns. Russian experts say, however, even if Moscow did more, it would not be able to prevent more outbursts of increasingly lethal violence because the teenage years are among the most difficult of life’s stages. They are a time when hormones drive young people to set themselves apart from their parents, feel isolated, and often try things that they would not try later (Telegram/@anthro_fun, reposted at Echo FM, December 16, 2025). The longer Putin’s war against Ukraine continues, the longer the increase in the number of guns in private hands in the Russian Federation lasts. The militarization of Russian education will also continue, and both familiarize Russian children with guns and lead some of them to think they should use them for their own purposes.
As London-based Russian commentator Vladimir Pastukhov pointedly notes, “the surge in attacks by pupils against their classmates” in Russian schools is not something random but rather reflects how violence now “permeates the atmosphere” of Russian life as a whole (Telegram/@v_pastukhov reposted at Ekho FM, February 4). He continues, saying, “there is a direct link between these outbreaks of violence and the propaganda of war as a universal way to resolve all and sundry conflicts, a law of interconnected violence.” This means that in countries like Russia, where war has become a cult, there is going to be more violence, not just in the schools. The violence now intensifying in the schools is likely to presage more violence throughout society as the youngsters of today become the adults of tomorrow. This development suggests that bullying and armed attacks in Russian schools are a harbinger of Russia’s future.
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