Gunmen targeted synagogues and churches in two southern Russian cities on Sunday, killing several police officers and a priest in an apparent coordinated operation that highlighted Russia’s vulnerability to extreme violence.

Multiple law enforcement personnel and a priest were killed in Dagestan during what seemed to be coordinated attacks, according to local officials.

Officials claimed six of the shooters were killed in shootouts in the two cities of Makhachkala and Derbent in Dagestan, a largely Muslim province on the Caspian Sea.

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According to officials and religious organizations, they attacked synagogues and churches in both locations, armed with guns and Molotov cocktails.

Sergei Melikov, the governor of Dagestan, described the terrorist assault as the latest attempt ‘on our brotherhood, on our ethnically diverse togetherness.’

The specific death toll was not immediately known. Mr. Melikov added that ‘ more than 15 law enforcement employees fell prey to today’s terrorist act,’ but did not specify what percentage of them had been killed or injured.

The gunmen’s intentions and identities were also unknown, and there was no claim of responsibility for the incident. Russia’s Investigative Committee, which functions similarly to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced the launch of a terrorism probe.

The attack was the latest example of apparent extreme violence within Russia while the country pursued its war with neighboring Ukraine.

In an attack on a Moscow performance hall in March, four attackers killed 145 people, for which the Islamic State took responsibility. Last October, an antisemitic crowd attacked a plane arriving in Dagestan from Tel Aviv.

The Russian Jewish Congress reported that the assailants in Derbent set fire to a synagogue after shooting and killing the police officers guarding it. They also killed a priest, Nikolai Kotelnikov, according to a Russian Orthodox Church spokeswoman.

The priest was the sole documented casualty of Sunday’s attack who was not a law enforcement officer, while Mr. Melikov stated that ‘several’ civilians had died.

According to state media sources, at the same time, early Sunday evening, assailants opened fire on a traffic police position in Makhachkala.

The terrorists also targeted Makhachkala’s Cathedral of the Assumption, according to the state According to the Russian Jewish Congress, there have been media reports and a synagogue.

Dagestan’s interior ministry released videos showing gunmen on the loose in the city of Makhachkala, shooting fire and ordering people out of their automobiles. Police said that roads leading out of the city were temporarily shut down.

It was unclear late Sunday whether any gunmen were at large, but Mr. Melikov said the ‘active phase’ of the police reaction had ended.

The violence underscored Russia’s long-standing ethnic and religious conflicts, notably in the country’s southern Caucasus region, which includes Dagestan.

Patriarch Kirill I, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said it was ‘no coincidence’ that the incident occurred on the day Orthodox Christians celebrate Pentecost.

‘We see that the enemy is not giving up on attempts to destroy interreligious peace and harmony within our society,’ Kirill told reporters in a statement.

The identity of the enemy remained unknown.

The Kremlin did not comment, and the authorities provided scant information about the assailants’ names. Still, some state media stories suggested that some of the gunmen were the sons of a local official.

Following the March shooting at a Moscow concert hall, Russia’s deadliest terrorist assault in 20 years, Russian officials frequently asserted, without evidence, that Ukraine and the West were to blame, despite the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility.

On Sunday, some Russian leaders pointed a finger at the West without providing documentation. Leonid Slutsky Leonid Slutsky, a senior politician,

alleged that the attacks were carried out with ‘the aim of sowing panic and dividing the people of Russia’ and that ‘the blood of the victims’ was also in the hands of the US.

According to community officials, the attacks were the most recent instance to upset Russia’s Jewish community, which has suffered increased threats since the start of the conflict in Gaza.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was in contact with Jewish community leaders in Dagestan and that no injuries had been reported.

Gunmen target synagogues