Two Teens Arrested As Accomplices In Russian School Attack

Armed police block an area around the school in Sosnovy Bor on the outskirts of Ulan-Ude after the attack on January 19.

Police in Russia's Buryatia region have arrested two teenagers they suspect helped a ninth-grader attack fellow students with an ax and other weapons last week.

The Investigative Committee said on January 24 that two suspected accomplices in the January 19 attack at a school in the regional capital, Ulan-Ude, were taken into custody and charged.

Investigators believe the suspects, boys aged 14 and 15, knew about the attack in advance, helped make a Molotov cocktail, and aided the assailant by telling him where teachers were located in the school.

Officials have not named the main suspect, who they say burst into a classroom, threw the incendiary device, and stabbed five seventh-graders and a teacher with a military knife and an axe before stabbing himself several times.

Two of the injured remain in grave condition.

Investigators say the alleged attacker, who has been charged on multiple counts of attempted murder, was motivated by hatred for some teachers and conflicts with other students.

The attack was one of at least three at schools in Russia last week. It followed a knife attack at a school in Perm on January 15 and a stabbing at a school in the Chelyabinsk region.