One of the assailants on a police patrol in the southwest of the Russian capital was wounded in the shootout and detained, a Moscow police spokesman said.
Unknown attackers opened fire from automatic weapons on a police patrol on the Profsoyuznaya street at 0:40 Moscow time (20:40 GMT, Wednesday) killing one and wounding two policemen. Policemen returned fire and the attackers fled the scene in a Lada car.
"One of the assailants on the policemen was wounded in the shootout and taken to a hospital escorted by a convoy," the spokesman said.
He added that the detained suspect was born in 1988 and is a resident of Makhachkala, the capital of the troubled Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan.
The Moscow police launched a special operation, codenamed Volcano, to detain the attackers.
The last time a policeman was shot dead in the Russian capital was in March of this year.
Police officer Denis Klimovich was shot dead, when he and his colleague stopped a BMW car and asked to see the driver's identification. His colleague, Konstantin Bykov, was seriously injured in the incident. The suspected killer was arrested several days later.
MOSCOW, August 12 (RIA Novosti)