Moscow (AFP) - At least four people, including two children, were killed when a man opened fire Tuesday in a kindergarten in the Ulyanovsk region in central Russia, Russian news agencies reported.

"According to preliminary information, a shooting took place in a kindergarten. As a result, two children, a teacher, and the attacker were killed," Dmitry Kemal, the head of the information service in the Ulyanovsk region, told AFP.

He confirmed the start of the investigation at the scene of the accident. The age of the two children is not known, but they are probably between three and six years old, according to Kamal.
A law enforcement source told the state-run Tass news agency that the shooting may have been caused by a "family dispute".

According to the Baza channel on the Telegram platform, whose sources are known to Russian law enforcement agencies, the man entered the kindergarten during siesta with an Izh-27 double-barreled rifle. No guard was present at the time.

Deputy Sergei Morozov, the former governor of the region, said that a young teacher was killed and another injured in the attack, while RIA Novosti agency reported that the two dead children were born in 2016 and 2018.

Morozov confirmed that the attacker committed suicide.

In 2021, Russia witnessed two bloody shootings, one at a school in Kazan and the other at a university in Perm, which led to tougher gun possession laws.