A first-person view clip has surfaced online showing several security officers firing on two of the armed assailants behind a series of deadly terrorist attacks in Russia’s Dagestan on Sunday. The firefight took place in the regional capital of Makhachkala.
The assaults in the southern Russian region were launched by several groups of gunmen. In Makhachkala, militants attacked an Orthodox church and initiated a shootout at a traffic police post. In the city of Derbent in southern Dagestan, another Orthodox church was attacked and a Jewish synagogue set on fire.
The footage starts with an officer in plain clothes firing single rounds from a firearm equipped with an optical sight. He is also heard swearing at militants who appear to be somewhere down the street but are not clearly visible in the video. Another security officer, who is apparently holding the camera, tells his colleague that the attackers are still firing back and “moving.”
The first officer, who is lying on the ground, then says that he “got” one of the assailants and “pumped” him full of lead. The man with the camera then asks where the others are, apparently referring to reinforcements that they expect to come.
The clip ends with the two officers standing in the middle of a street next to what appears to be an armored wheeled personnel carrier belonging either to the military or security forces. Two black-clad attackers can also be seen lying on the ground in pools of blood. One of them still tries to reach out for his weapon despite his wounds, with the officers telling him to “lie still.”
It is unclear who the officers in the video are. Some Russian media outlets have referred to them as police, while others identified them as members of a special forces unit. The Russian authorities have not commented on the video so far.
According to the local health authorities, at least 20 people were killed in the attacks, including over a dozen officers and several civilians. An Orthodox priest had his throat slit during the attack on his church in Derbent. More than 40 people were injured.
According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the attackers are believed to have belonged to an organized group. Criminal cases of terrorism and illegal possession of firearms were launched in the wake of the incident. Five perpetrators involved in the attack were “eliminated“ during the counterterrorism operation, according to official data.