About 50 militants were killed in the Nalchik attacks, Interfax reported.

Militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings in one of the main cities in Russia’s turbulent Caucasus region today, sparking battles involving heavy-arms fire and explosions that forced the evacuation of schools and left bodies in the streets.

Police and security forces today battled gunmen in and around a school in Nalchik, the capital of the southern Russian region of Kabardino-Balkariya.