MOSCOW: Russian police stormed an apartment on Monday and killed a man after he fired shots at a kindergarten, shattering a window of a gym where children were playing and lightly wounding a teacher who was hit by flying glass, police and media reports said.

The man, 51 or 52 years old, fired several shots with a hunting rifle from a window of his apartment in the town of Salavat, the Interior Ministry branch in the Bashkortostan region 1,500 km (930 miles) southeast of Moscow said.

Six bullets hit the window of the gym and a shard of glass struck a teacher in the stomach as she tried to get the children out of the room, according to news website life.ru, a tabloid that has close ties to law enforcement agencies.

Police surrounded the gunman's home and demanded he surrender, but he refused and opened fire when police stormed his apartment, the Interior Ministry said. He was killed by return fire from police, it said.

Mass shootings are not common in Russia, but a 30-year-old lawyer fatally shot five colleagues at his pharmaceutical firm in Moscow on Nov. 7 in what appeared to be a drunken rampage after his girlfriend left him.

The sale of combat weapons is illegal in Russia, and the November shooting prompted Russia's Interior Ministry to consider toughening existing gun legislation. Hunting rifles can be acquired with a permit.