Putin blames Crimean school shooting on ‘globalization’

Russian President Vladimir Putin says yesterday’s mass school shooting in Crimea is the result of “globalization” and the continuation of an American trend.

“It’s a result of globalization. On social media, on the internet, we see that there is a whole community that has been created. Everything started with the tragic events in schools in the US,” he says at a forum in Sochi.

He says unstable young people are creating “fake heroes for themselves” and “reaching out for a surrogate for heroism” in the absence of the real thing.

“We’re not creating healthy (internet) content for young people… which leads to tragedies of this kind,” he says.

“But there is a place for real heroism in today’s life,” he says.

An 18-year-old identified as Vladislav Roslyakov killed at least 20 students at a college in the Moscow-annexed peninsula before killing himself.

More than 40 others were injured in what local press dubbed “Russia’s Columbine,” a reference to a 1999 US high school massacre.

Authorities said they were working to establish the motive for the attack.

An ex-girlfriend told Russian state media Roslyakov had spoken to her about taking revenge for bullying at the school.

— AFP