At least 11 dead as two Russian soldiers open fire on recruits heading to fight in Ukraine at training base near border
AT LEAST 11 people are dead and 15 injured after two Russian soldiers went on a gun rampage at an army training base near the Ukraine border tonight.
The recruits turned their guns on comrades who were reportedly training for the front line in the southern region of Belgorod.
The Russian Ministry of Defence called it a "terrorist attack".
It said two volunteers from an unnamed ex-Soviet nation fired at recruits during target practice.
The pair were killed by return fire in the bloody shoot-out on Saturday.
The 11 victims were said to be "volunteers from the Bryansk region,"; according to media reports.
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An official statement from Russia's MoD said: "At the training ground of the Western Military District in the Belgorod Region, two citizens of one of the CIS countries committed a terrorist act.
"As a result, 11 people died, 15 were injured and received medical assistance.
"Terrorists fired on the personnel of the unit. Two terrorists were destroyed by return fire.
"Law enforcement agencies are working at the site of the terrorist attack."
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The shocking incident comes after up to 70 mobilisation offices across Russia were hit with Molotov cocktails as anger grows over enlistment.
Putin has said the mobilisation will end in two weeks after 220,000 men have been enlisted, still 80,000 short of the target set at its beginning.
There is rising fury over mobilisation officials forcibly recruiting men with little or no training in apparent violation of the rules, amid heavy military losses for Russia.
Armed conscript-snatching teams of enlistment officers backed by police have been operating in Russian cities, grabbing men on underground trains, on the street, and in offices.
Russia has put in place extra security for mobilisation teams and enlistment offices.
The mobilisation has led to hundreds and thousands of men fleeing abroad, voting with their feet against Putin.
Drunken new conscripts were also filmed staggering, fighting and falling asleep as they were packed into school buses to be taken to training camp, as another video filmed inside a bus showed the mobilised men drinking vodka from huge bottles.
The shooting comes just hours after an oil depot in the Belgorod region was engulfed by flames after being shelled on Saturday.
"We're getting bombed again. One of the shells hit the oil depot in the Belgorod region," regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
He said emergency services were already on site, adding there was "no risk" of the fire spreading.
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Gladkov posted a photo showing flames and plumes of black smoke rising above a building.
State-run news agency TASS cited a source in the emergency services saying the burning depot was located in the village of Razumnoye-71, near the city of Belgorod.