Russian teenagers livestream shootout with police before shooting themselves

Two teenagers on the run from their parents live-streamed a shootout with police before taking their own lives.

The two 15-year-olds, named as Denis and Katya, were found dead with gunshot wounds inside a house in the north-western Russian Pskov region after a standoff with police.

Chilling footage live-streamed on Periscope and posted on Instagram showed the pair chatting to the camera and firing at police outside.

In the video, the girl explains that she had an argument with her mother after she went to a sleepover that she was not allowed to go to.

Her mother arrived to fetch her and Denis allegedly shot her in the hip before the pair ran away and spent three days hiding from their parents at a house in the village of Krasniye Strugi.

During the Periscope livestream, Katya is heard saying: “We have zero options.”

Denis adds: “If we don’t surrender, we die. But if we surrender, we will never see each other again.”

The National Guard special forces said in a statement to TASS news agency that they found “the bodies of a girl and a young man with clear signs of suicide”, adding that they did not open fire.

Investigators said they were trying to find out the reason the teenagers took the “desperate step” and where their weapons came from.

Russian children’s ombudswoman Anna Kuznetsova said: “This is a terrible tragedy. We’re looking into the circumstances and the details of what happened.”

Access to guns in Russia is tightly restricted.

A spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee said: “The investigating authorities reported sighting of shooting at a police car in which law enforcement officers arrived at one of the houses in the village for the purpose of tracing the missing teenager.

“It was found that two 15-year-old barricaded themselves in the house armed with weapons.

“Law-enforcement officers negotiated with them for several hours but no result was achieved and the teenagers stopped responding.

“Special forces officers used stun grenades and stormed the house where the teenagers were found dead with gunshot wounds.”