Another Result of Putin's War in Ukraine: Violence in Russian Schools Ever More Frequent and More Lethal

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 4 – For most of the past 25 years, Russians have referred to the relatively rare cases of violence in their country’s schools as “Columbines,” a reference to the 1999 mass shooting in an American high school. But as the frequency and lethality of violent attacks has increased, ever more of them have had to confront the domestic roots of Russian school violence.

            London-based Russian commentator Vladimir Pastukhov says that “the surge in attacks by pupils on their classmates” in Russian schools is hardly random. Instead, it is a reflection of the way in which violence now “permeates the atmosphere” of the Russian Federation at a whole (t.me/v_pastukhov/1810 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/to-li-eshhe-budet).

            According to him, “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 so to speak.” And that means in countries like Russia where war has become a cult, there is going to be more violence not just in schools but throughout society.

            Just  how widespread such school violence in Russia has become especially in the last few months has been documented by Radio Liberty journalist Maryana Torocheshnikova (svoboda.org/a/strah-i-nenavistj-v-shkole/33670618.html). She reports that there were at least 11 such outbursts in 2025 and that there have been nearly half that many already in 2026.

            What is most disturbing, she reports that in almost a third of these cases, attackers used guns and children were wounded or even killed as a result. Because of these trends, ever fewer Russians are talking about these as imports and instead viewing them as a product of trends that Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine are producing.