Russian border guards fired on a Japanese fishing boat and seized it Wednesday morning, with one of the four fishermen on board having died.

The shooting took place at about 06:00 a.m. local time near Russia's Tanfilyev Island, a spokesman for the Sakhalin coast guard department of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said.

A gunshot wound was found in the dead fisherman's head, and the boat and three other fishermen had been detained, he said.

"The time of his death will be established by medical examinations," he said.

The Japanese schooner was stopped after a long pursuit, during which the boat did not answer to Russian coast guards' radio and light signals. Then the coast guards fired warning shots on the vessel using a Kalashnikov submachine gun. The boat had been escorted to Yuzhno-Kurilsk port for further investigation, the spokesman added.

According to Kyodo News, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official had handed a protest letter to the Russian Embassy in Tokyo, demanding immediate release of the three other fishermen.

Editor: Yan