A Russian teenager attempted to blow himself up at an Orthodox school near a 14th-century convent outside Moscow on Monday (Dec 13), wounding at least 10 students, the interior ministry said.

“An 18-year-old graduate of this educational institution entered the premises of the Orthodox gymnasium of the Vvedenskiy Vladychniy convent and blew himself up,” it said in a statement.

A 15-year-old was injured in the attack in the city of Serpukhov, 100km south of Moscow, the statement said.

The perpetrator is still alive but in intensive care, according to a representative of the Investigative Committee, Olga Vradiy.

The ministry said the staff had been evacuated and that “information about other victims” was being clarified.

Russia has seen a rise in similar attacks on schools in recent years but incidents at religious premises are rare. Several Russian news agencies said that up to ten people were injured. The school teaches children from the ages of seven until 16.

Ten children were wounded, said Ksenia Mishonova, the children’s rights ombudswoman for the Moscow region.

“One teenager was hospitalized. The rest of the children are in hospitals in the Moscow region,” she said on Telegram.

“There is no threat to their lives”.

“All the services reacted on time, doctors helped injured children and there is no threat to their lives,” he said on Telegram.

Moscow prosecutors posted a video from the scene with police and ambulances outside the convent in snowfall.

It also posted a video of a local prosecutor from inside the school with Orthodox icons in the background. The Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it had opened a criminal case into attempted murder and the illegal handling of explosives. The Committee also said it had sent detectives to the scene.

In September, a student killed six people and wounded dozens on a university campus in the Urals city of Perm.

In May, a 19-year-old opened fire in his old school in the central city of Kazan, killing nine people.

In October 2018, another teenage gunman killed 20 people at a Kerch technical college in Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The attacks have led some in Russia to call for stricter gun control in the country and for reinforced security in schools.