One of the assailants on a police patrol in the southwest of the Russian capital was wounded in the shootout and detained, a Moscow police spokesman said, RIA Novosti reported.
Unknown attackers opened fire from automatic weapons on a police patrol on the Profsoyuznaya street at 0:40 Moscow time (20:40 GMT, Wednesday) killing one and wounding two policemen. Policemen returned fire and the attackers fled the scene in a Lada car.
"One of the assailants on the policemen was wounded in the shootout and taken to a hospital escorted by a convoy," the spokesman said.
He added that the detained suspect was born in 1988 and is a resident of Makhachkala, the capital of the troubled Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan.
The Moscow police launched a special operation, codenamed Volcano, to detain the attackers.
The last time a policeman was shot dead in the Russian capital was in March of this year.
Police officer Denis Klimovich was shot dead, when he and his colleague stopped a BMW car and asked to see the driver's identification. His colleague, Konstantin Bykov, was seriously injured in the incident. The suspected killer was arrested several days later.