Who was Alina Afanaskina? Prague university shooting suspect David Kozak's Telegram messages reveal he was inspired by Russian schoolgirl

24-year-old David Kozak, the suspected gunman in the Prague university shooting, had named Alina Afanaskina as his inspiration in his Telegram messages posted before the shootout. Alina Afanaskina was a 14-year-old Russian schoolgirl who went on a shooting spree in her school on December 7, 2023, killing one of her classmates and injuring five before committing suicide.

Kozak went on a shooting spree in Prague's Charles University on December 21, 2023, killing 14 people and injuring 25. In the Telegram messages posted on December 10, 2023, he wrote:

"I want to do a school shooting and possibly suicide. Alina Afanaskina helped me too much."

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14-year-old schoolgirl Alina Afanaskina used her father's gun to go on a shooting spree in her school

According to Times Now World, on December 9, 2023, 14-year-old Alina Afanaskina, an eighth-grade progymnasium student in Bryansk school in Russia, opened fire on her classmates using a pump-action Bekas-3 shotgun that belonged to her father. The attack took place in the school gymnasium.

As reported by the BBC, police were called to Gymnasium No. 5 in Bryansk school at 9.15 am following reports of a shooting in the school. They found Alina Afanaskina dead, dressed all in black.

She had committed suicide after killing one of her classmates and injuring five others. According to Reuters, a photo of Afanaskina showed that she reportedly had a long-handled knife tucked into her right boot.

Russian News Agency RIA reported that students immediately barricaded themselves inside classrooms once they heard gunshots. One of the school girls told RIA:

"The boys barricaded the door with the desks, one girl called the police, the teacher was calling everyone else."

No concrete motive has been found as to why Afanaskina opened fire in her school, though she was reportedly bullied since elementary school and had conflicts with the other schoolchildren.

Although gun control is tight in Russia, Bryansk is one of the regions that have been in the middle of the Russian-Ukraine war. Therefore, gun control is lax there.

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Prague shooter drew inspiration from the Russian school shooter

David Kozak took to using the online platform Telegram to write about his twisted fantasies regarding mass murders and massacres. He said his Telegram channel would be a “diary” of his life “before the shooting.”

He also wrote about Ilnaz Galyaviev, a 19-year-old teenager who carried out a mass shooting in a school in Kazan, Russia, on May 11, 2021. This massacre resulted in 9 deaths and 23 people injured. In his Telegram posts, Kozak continued:

"I always wanted to kill, I thought I would become a maniac in the future.. Then when Ilnaz did the shooting, I realized that it was much more profitable to do mass murders rather than serial ones. I sat.. Waited.. Dreamed.. Wanted.. but Alina became the last point. It was as if she had come to my aid from heaven just in time."

Kozak, a student at Charles University, opened fire in Charles University and surrounding areas just after 3 pm on December 21, 2023. Later, he was found dead inside the philosophy department of the university. Police believe that this incident is not linked to domestic or international terrorism.

According to The Mirror, Kozak killed his father before committing the mass shooting. The police discovered his father's body at around 12.45 pm.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala has declared Saturday, December 23, 2023, as a national day of mourning to commemorate the victims of the shooting.