By Haris Tagari
A 10-year-old boy of Tajik origin was stabbed to death by an older neo-Nazi student at a school near Moscow.
Witnesses reported that the attacker asked students about their nationality before carrying out the fatal stabbing on Tuesday, 16 December.
The attacker, a 15-year-old student named Timofey K., reportedly entered the school armed with a knife and a canister of pepper spray, then injured a security guard before turning on pupils.
The suspect wore a T-shirt with the text “No Lives Matter” during the attack.
The perpetrator also wore a protective helmet bearing multiple inscriptions, including the neo-Nazi slogan “Beat the Jews, Save Russia” and a quote linked to Dylann Roof, who carried out the Charleston church attack in the US in 2015.
He also reportedly expressed admiration for Brenton Tarrant, the far-right terrorist responsible for killing 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in New Zealand in March 2019.
The teenager filmed the attack on his phone and posted the footage online.
The videos depict the suspect chasing pupils with a knife before fatally killing the Tajik boy.
The suspect with Neo-Nazi slogans and symbols before the attack
The victim was a fourth-grade pupil at Uspenskaya Secondary School in the Gorki-2 settlement of the Odintsovo district.
This detail has raised serious concerns about ethnically motivated hostility and a possible Islamophobic motive, given the victim’s Tajik background and the attacker’s targeting of nationality.
Footage of the incident was shared on social media by a Telegram channel after the attacker recorded parts of the assault on his phone.
Authorities have opened a criminal case, and the boy’s death is under formal investigation by the Russian Investigative Committee.
Response from Tajikista
Tajikistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the killing and summoned Russia’s ambassador, Semyon Grigoriev, demanding an immediate, objective and impartial investigation.
The ministry has also issued a formal diplomatic note over what it described as the ethnically motivated killing of the schoolboy.
Officials expressed their “deepest condolences” to the family and friends of the deceased child and called for full accountability under Russian law.
Equipment and clothing of the suspectFinal moments of the 10 year old Muslim Tajik boy from the video recorded by the attacker.
While Russian authorities have not officially labelled the incident a hate crime, the fact that the perpetrator asked pupils about their nationality before attacking has led community leaders and advocates to voice alarm over possible Islamophobic and xenophobic motivations.
Consideration of motive remains central to the ongoing investigation.
In the months following a major terror attack linked to Tajik suspects in 2024, xenophobic abuse, police raids and harsh enforcement actions have disproportionately affected Tajik workers and migrants in Russia, according to reports on migration law violations and raids in Moscow.
