Eight people are dead after a Russian soldier opened fire on colleagues at an army base.

The gunman turned his gun on his fellow soldiers after potentially having a nervous breakdown, the country's Interfax news agency quoted the defence ministry as saying.

Two other people were reportedly wounded in the incident but their lives are not in danger.

It happened at a base in the eastern town of Gorny in the Lake Baikal region, about 93 miles (150km) north of the Mongolian border.

The soldier, a conscript, has been detained.


Shootings and other violent incidents were not unusual in the Russian military in the 1990s and early 2000s when there were cash shortages and low morale.

However, in recent years they have become less common as conditions have improved.