Blagoveshchensk College Shooting

On the morning of 14 November 2019, at approximately 10:15–10:17 a.m. local time, a shooting took place at the Amur College of Construction, Housing and Utilities in Blagoveshchensk, Amur Oblast, Russia. According to one account of events, student Daniil Zasorin arrived late to class and was asked to leave by his teacher. He left, then returned a short time later, concealing a weapon under his outer clothing. While smoking in a corridor of the college, he was reprimanded, at which point he produced a five-shot IZh-81 shotgun and opened fire.

Eyewitnesses fled outside, where traffic police officers happened to be patrolling. When police arrived at the scene, they saw the gunman on the second floor of the building; he fired several shots in their direction, and officers returned fire, wounding him in the thigh and both shoulders. The gunman was blocked inside a classroom, allowing students and staff to evacuate. He subsequently killed himself. Authorities with the Department of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Amur region cited a conflict between peers as the preliminary cause. One student was killed and three others were wounded in the attack.

The Investigative Committee of the Amur Region opened a criminal case under provisions of Article 105 of the Russian Criminal Code concerning murder of two or more persons with a rowdy motive. Separate criminal cases were initiated against employees of the private security firm "Sirius-A," which had been responsible for guarding the college, and against officials of the educational institution, on charges related to provision of services not meeting safety requirements and negligence resulting in death. Two employees of Sirius-A, Oleg Ermolov and the firm's director Sergei Andryushchenko, were arrested and later, on 30 September 2022, sentenced by the Blagoveshchensk City Court to fines and ordered to pay compensation to victims and to the mother of the deceased student, with their time in custody and under house arrest counted toward their sentence.

The perpetrator, Daniil Viktorovich Zasorin, born in 2000, was a 19-year-old student at the college who reportedly grew up with his mother, stepfather, and younger brother, and had planned to become a programmer. His stepfather had allowed him to purchase the shotgun for hunting. A deputy prosecutor general stated that draft-board staff in Blagoveshchensk had been aware of Zasorin's suicidal tendencies but were not permitted to report this information to the college under existing rules. A YouTube video Zasorin had uploaded prior to the attack was later discovered.

In the aftermath, the college was placed under the protection of Rosgvardiya troops, and a new private security contract was later signed. The college director was dismissed, and a regional deputy minister of education resigned. Victims' families received compensation from a regional government reserve fund. Security measures, including access control and alarm system checks, were tightened at educational institutions across the region following the incident.