One policeman shot dead, 2 wounded in southwest of Moscow

The attackers opened fire from automatic weapons on a police patrol on the Profsoyuznaya street at 0:40 Moscow time (20:40 GMT, Wednesday) and then fled the scene of the crime in a Lada car.

The Moscow police launched a special operation, codenamed Volcano, to detain the attackers.

A source in the police said, however, that the two wounded policemen managed to detain one of the assailants.

The last time a policeman was shot dead in the Russian capital was in March of this year.

Police officer Denis Klimovich was shot dead, when he and his colleague stopped a BMW car and asked to see the driver's identification. His colleague, Konstantin Bykov, was seriously injured in the incident. The suspected killer was arrested several days later, Kazinform cites RIA Novosti. See www.en.rian.ru