Policemen walk near the pastry-making factory Menshevik where a gunman earlier opened fire, in Moscow. File/Reuters

Police in Russia shot dead a 16-year-old teenager in the Muslim-majority Tatarstan region after he tried to set fire to a local police station and stabbed a police officer, Russian investigators said on Friday.

Russia's Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes, said in statement it was treating the incident as an attempted act of terrorism and had opened a criminal case.

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The teenager had tried to set alight a police station in the town of Kukmor using a Molotov cocktail and had stabbed a police officer at last three times during an arrest attempt, the statement said.

Another police officer had fired warning shots into the air before being forced to open fire, it said, saying the unnamed teenager had died of his wounds before medics could arrive on the scene.

It was not immediately clear what the teenager's motive for such an attack was.