Authorities in Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya say they killed a man after he allegedly shot and killed a police officer.
Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov told reporters on January 4 that the man, identified as 27-year-old Khamzat Baimuradov, was killed in a police operation launched after an officer was shot dead late on January 3.
Baimuradov was killed in the central village of Avtury after he refused to surrender and opened fire at police, Alkhanov said.
Attacks on police and authorities in Chechnya have persisted for years after Russia drove out a separatist Chechen government in the second of two devastating post-Soviet wars.
The wars spawned an Islamist insurgency that has spread from Chechnya to other mostly Muslim North Caucasus provinces.