MOSCOW. Nov 25 (Interfax-AVN) - Two servicemen armed with two Kalashnikov assault rifles and 120 cartridges deserted from a military unit stationed in Solnechnogorsk outside Moscow last night and shot and killed two policemen some time later.
Soon after the soldiers deserted from their unit, two policemen discovered them in the Dzerzhinskoye cafe on Bankovskaya Street in Solnechnogorsk and tried to detain them, but the soldiers shot and killed the policemen, the Moscow regional police told Interfax.
After that, the soldiers seized a shuttle taxi carrying two women and, using them as a human shield, traveled to Dmitrov in the Moscow region, where they were encircled on Podyachenskaya Street.
Then the soldiers, still holding the two women hostage, seized a residential house, where two elderly people resided. Certain reports indicate that two female hostages managed to flee.
A Defense Ministry source in an interview with Interfax identified the deserters as Alexander Oparin and Dmitry Oparin, who were drafted in Chelyabinsk and served in a regiment attached to the Frunze Military Academy.
"Academy chief Col. Gen. Vladimir Popov has rushed to the scene," the source said.
The deserters had served for one and a half years before the incident.
The two have been encircled, and a special commando unit has been called to disarm and neutralize them.