Two Inmates, Guard Die In Russian Prison Riot

At least 200 prisoners clashed with baton-wielding police and prison staff.

Two prisoners and a guard were killed during a riot which broke out in a jail for young offenders in Russia's Urals region of Sverdlovsk late on Tuesday, prosecutors and prison officials said on Wednesday.

At least 200 prisoners clashed with baton-wielding police and prison staff. Building were torched as signal flares and shots were fired.

"The situation spun out of control, and as a result several administrative buildings have been set on fire," the Sverdlovsk prosecutor's office said in a statement.

"The penitentiary's administration had to use arms because convicts were trying to break through the main fence and escape. As a result, two prisoners received lethal gunshot wounds."

One prison guard died after being severely assaulted.

Nine inmates and six prison staff were wounded in the fighting, a prison official told Russia's Channel One television.

The violence may have been triggered by a group of prisoners refusing to be put into punishment cells for discipline offences, the prosecutor's office said.

The riot was put down shortly after midnight (1800 GMT). "The situation at the penitentiary is under control. The fire has been extinguished," the local prisons service said in a statement.