Officer killed in assault on police station in Russia’s Chechnya, along with attacker

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(Reuters) – A man wielding a knife was killed after attacking a police station in Chechnya on Tuesday, along with one of the station’s officers in the Russian Caucasus region, officials said.

Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s leader and a fervent supporter of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, said the attacker was “liquidated” after the attack at the police station in Achkhoy-Martan, outside the region’s main town, Grozny.

Kadyrov sent Chechen men to fight alongside Russian soldiers in the now more than three-year-old war in Ukraine that Russia started with a full-scale invasion on its smaller neighbour.

In comments posted on Telegram on Tuesday, Kadyrov said it had been established the attacker was acting at the behest of a group under the direction of a Ukrainian national. He offered no evidence of Ukrainian involvement.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine to Kadyrov’s claims.

Russia fought two post-Soviet wars over mainly Muslim Chechnya and in the end put down a separatist rebellion, leaving the region largely in ruins and at the cost of many thousands of lives. Kadyrov has been the region’s leader since 2007.

Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, which deals with serious crime, said in comments reported by Russian news agencies that a policeman had also died in the assault on the police station.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Leslie Adler))