MOSCOW: Four police were shot dead on Sunday in an ambush by unknown gunmen in Russia’s violence-plagued Caucasus region of Dagestan, the local Interior Ministry said. The incident took place in Russia’s violence-plagued Dagestan region on Sunday when unidentified gunmen opened fire on their car, local investigators said.
The police drove to the village of Burshi where they had received a report of a robbery, and were shot dead as they were leaving the area, Russian news agencies quoted the Interior Ministry as saying.
A largely Muslim region on the Caspian Sea, Dagestan has become Russia’s worst trouble spot in recent years with almost daily attacks on the security forces blamed on Islamist militants.
The police officers were on their way back from a village of Burshi, some 100 km south-west of regional capital Makhachkala, when their car was attacked by two assailants. Insurgents are fighting to carve out an Islamic state in Dagestan, an ethnically mixed, mostly Muslim region in the North Caucasus between Chechnya and the Caspian Sea.
Dagestan drew an international spotlight following an April bomb attack at the Boston Marathon in the United States. One of the bombing suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, went to Dagestan during a six-month visit to Russia last year, and Russian and US authorities are trying to determine whether he had contacts with militants there.
4 cops killed in ambush in Russia’s Dagestan
4 cops killed in ambush in Russia’s Dagestan
Zelensky wants to replace Ukraine’s defense minister
- President has offered the position to his current minister of digital transformation, who is aged just 34
- No explanation was given for his decision to replace Denys Shmygal
KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday said he intended to replace his defense minister and had offered the position to his current minister of digital transformation, who is aged just 34.
“I have decided to change the structure of the Ukrainian ministry of defense,” Zelensky said in his daily address broadcast on social media. “I have offered Mikhailo Fedorov the position of new Ukrainian defense minister.”
Fedorov, who has been digital transformation minister since 2019, is a relative political novice little-known to the Ukrainian public.
“Mykhailo is deeply involved in issues related to drones and is very effective in the digitalization of state services and processes,” Zelensky added.
Without explaining his decision to replace Denys Shmygal, the Ukrainian leader said he had proposed the incumbent “head another area of government work that is no less important for our stability.”
Zelensky had tapped Shmygal as defense minister just half a year ago, in July 2025.
Besides the turnover at the defense ministry, Zelensky also named Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov to head his presidential office.
Budanov replaces Andriy Yermak, who was among Ukraine’s most powerful people before being engulfed in a corruption scandal dogging some of Zelensky’s former allies.
