Tajikistan’s Foreign Ministry summoned Russia’s ambassador in Dushanbe on Wednesday to demand an impartial investigation into the fatal stabbing of a 10-year-old student at a school outside Moscow.
The victim, fourth-grader Kobiljon Aliyev, was killed Tuesday morning at Uspenskaya Secondary School in the affluent Moscow region suburb of Gorki-2. Police arrested a 15-year-old student on suspicion of carrying out the attack.
In a statement, Tajikistan’s Foreign Ministry condemned the killing and said it believed the attack was motivated by “ethnic hatred.”
The ministry said it handed Russian Ambassador Semyon Grigoryev a formal note calling on Russian authorities to conduct an “objective and impartial investigation” and ensure accountability for those responsible.
Russian law enforcement officials have not commented on Aliyev’s reported Tajik ethnicity.
Videos circulated by Telegram channels with links to Russian security services showed the suspected attacker, identified by media outlets as Timofey K., being taken into police custody.
In another video, the knife-wielding teenager is seen asking younger students about their ethnicity after encountering them with a teacher in a school corridor.
Unconfirmed reports claimed that photos found on the suspected attacker’s phone contained “extremist quotes” and the names of far-right organizations, as well as references to the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand.
Tajikistan’s Foreign Ministry said it had instructed its embassy in Moscow to closely monitor the investigation and maintain constant contact with Aliyev’s family.
The Gorki-2 attack came a day after police in St. Petersburg arrested a ninth-grade student accused of stabbing and injuring a teacher following a dispute over a bad grade.
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