Two policemen were killed and two others wounded in an attack on traffic police in Dagestan on Tuesday, TASS reported, citing the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) of the Russian republic in the North Caucasus, BTA reported.
Earlier, the regional MVD reported three policemen dead. Gunmen opened fire in the Dagestan capital Makhachkala. In addition to the two killed and two wounded policemen, two more people were injured.
Sergey Melikov, the head of Dagestan, said the shooting occurred when traffic police officers tried to stop a car driven by the attackers, Reuters reported. The attack took place at around 2:20 p.m. (and Bulgarian time).
Two of the shooters were also killed, a spokesman for the city administration in Makhachkala told "Telegram". He named them and said they were born in 2000. An unspecified number of other attackers managed to escape in a car.
A video posted on "Telegram" channels, the authenticity of which was verified by Reuters, shows multiple bodies lying on a city street next to a police car. As passersby stop to look, gunshots can be heard in the street.
The Russian republic of Dagestan, with a predominantly Muslim population, has been the scene of several deadly attacks in recent years, Reuters recalls.