MOSCOW, October 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - At least one person was killed when a Russian interior ministry helicopter crashed after coming under fighters fire in Chechnya, the Russian forces commander in the Caucasus region said Friday, October 18.

Two others are missing after the MI-8 chopper crashed into power lines and came down in a river with 25 people on board, killing one of its three crew members, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"The helicopter was flying in difficult weather conditions when it came under rebel fire and crashed into electricity cables while taking avoiding action," Colonel Boris Podoprigora told the ITAR-TASS news agency.

The helicopter was on its way from military headquarters in Mozkok, northern Ossetia, to Russia's main Chechen base at Khankala, near the republic's capital Grozny.

All of the passengers were police officers, according to earlier reports, some of which suggested the crash had killed 11 people and injured a further 12.

The incident is the latest in a series of downings of Russian helicopters by Chechen independence fighters in the war-torn republic.

In August, Chechen fighters shot down a larger MI-26 transport helicopter, killing its 121 passengers, most of them soldiers.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, Russian leaders slammed the country's law enforcement agencies Friday after the governor of the gold-producing Magadan region was shot dead on a busy Moscow street, the second killing of a political figure in the capital in less than two months.

Valentin Tsvetkov was gunned down during the early morning rush hour on Novy Arbat, one of Moscow's busiest thoroughfares, as he got out of his car and prepared to enter a federal building in which his administration has a permanent office, police said.

The slaying, believed to be related to Tsvetkov's links to the region's gold-mining industry, follows the murder on August 21 of State Duma deputy Vladimir Golovlev near his home in a north Moscow suburb.

It has triggered demands for reform of Russia's law enforcement system, with President Vladimir Putin placing Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov and Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov personally in charge of the investigation, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Tsvetkov had just arrived on Novy Arbat and was making for the office, accompanied by his wife and an aide, police told AFP.

"A gunman emerged from hiding and fired two shots, one at the governor, killing him, and another at his aide, and then threw away his gun and ran to a waiting car, where another man was at the wheel, and made good his escape," a police spokesman said.

The aide was unhurt. The car was found later and experts are combing it for fingerprints and other evidence, he said.

Federation Council (senate) speaker Sergei Mironov noted that Tsvetkov owned a gold refining plant in the Magadan region, in Russia's Far East, and was a dominant figure in the industry.

"I believe this was not a political killing. The governor must have harmed someone's business interests," he told the Interfax news agency.

"Regrettably, lawlessness still reigns in this country. A governor was killed in the center of Moscow on a road regularly used by cabinet ministers," he said, calling for "drastic reforms" to the law enforcement system "to make the safety of Russians the state's over-riding goal."

Mironov called for "an end to the impunity and audacity of criminals," a plea echoed by State Duma (lower house) speaker Gennady Seleznyov who said the Tsvetkov killing was further proof of the ineffectiveness of the police.

"Eight deputies have been killed in the Duma's history, and not one of these cases has been solved. The criminals feel total impunity," Interfax quoted him as saying.

Putin sent a message of condolence to Tsvetkov's wife, RIA Novosti reported.

Magadan is a largely isolated region on Russia's northern Pacific shoreline, the site of a notorious Stalin-era prison colony.

With an extreme climate and a rapidly declining population, the region's economy is dependent on gold and silver mines. Magadan is the second-largest gold-producing region in Russia.

Political killings have punctuated the turbulent years since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and Golovlev was the seventh Russian deputy to be murdered in eight years, according to a count by AFP.