Two local residents aged 18 and 20 were killed in a shootout with Daghestani police on Tuesday. Official sources have claimed that two men were preparing terrorist attacks and offered armed resistance during their attempted detention. Their names have not been disclosed.
The shooting was first reported on Wednesday by the state news agency TASS, citing a source in the republic’s law enforcement bodies. According to the reports, police officers stopped a car on 27 January for inspection on the outskirts of the village of Ullubiyaul in the Karabudakhkentsky district in eastern Daghestan.
TASS said that the young men in the vehicle opened fire first and were then killed by security forces.
Telegram-channel Sapa Kavkaz also reported that a carbine, two pistols, and an improvised explosive device were allegedly seized from the vehicle, and specified that the victims were 18 and 20 years old.
The following day, the Centre for Public Relations of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) issued a statement claiming that an attempt to carry out diversionary and terrorist attacks had been prevented in the Karabudakhkentsky district of Daghestan. According to the FSB, two residents of Daghestan were planning an attack on a religious institution, as well as a sabotage act on the Makhachkala–Derbent section of the railway operated by the Makhachkala territorial division of the North Caucasus Railway.
The FSB statement said that the operation was conducted ‘in cooperation with the Investigative Committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia’ and that the alleged suspects were preparing the attacks ‘under the coordination of representatives of an international terrorist organisation banned in the Russian Federation’. The name of the organisation was not specified.
The FSB’s reporting added some more details to the incident, saying the suspects ‘offered armed resistance and were eliminated by return fire’ during an attempted detention by a railway station. The FSB further claimed that there were no casualties among law enforcement officers or civilians.
Firearms, ammunition, and an improvised explosive device were found at the scene, the FSB said, adding that the device was later neutralised by FSB explosives experts.
During a subsequent search at the residences of the two men, the FSB claims to have seized ‘extremist literature and symbols of an international terrorist organisation’.
The Investigative Committee in Daghestan reported that a criminal case has been opened under the articles ‘attempt on the life of a law enforcement officer’ and ‘illegal trafficking in weapons’.
The 27 January shooting was the latest in a long string of violent incidents between police and Daghestani residents.
In November 2025, a man was killed by police after attacking officers at the Dzhemikentsky checkpoint in the Derbent district of Daghestan. No police officers were harmed during the attack.
In May 2025, two police officers were killed and several others injured in an armed attack on a traffic patrol unit in the capital of Daghestan. The incident also left three civilians wounded, including a 17-year-old girl. Both attackers were killed during the ensuing chase.
In April 2025, a driver in the Daghestani city of Derbent ran over a police officer and opened fire on others before being fatally shot.
In March 2025, a counter-terrorist regime was declared in the village of Semender in Makhachkala. According to the Daghestan operative headquarters, during the check by law enforcers of information about possible preparation of a terrorist attack, several people opened fire during an attempt to detain them. Four people were killed by law enforcement officers in the shootout. The Anti-Terrorist Committee declared those killed as militants of the Islamic State.
Elizaveta Chukharova
