A RUSSIAN police officer hit three girls with his car while driving drunk in Siberia and one was killed after being run over by the ambulance sent to treat them.

The police officer, who was driving his personal car, ran into the three girls on Tuesday as they walked at night on the side of the road near Kargosok, a town in the Tomsk region, the local interior ministry said.

One of the girls, aged 15, was then run over and killed by an ambulance that arrived at the scene, the ministry said.

The other two girls were being treated in hospital for head wounds and were in stable condition, it said.

The incident was the latest in a string of scandals involving Russian police hitting pedestrians while driving drunk.

In a separate incident, prosecutors in the Kursk region south of Moscow said that a member of the local police had been identified as the driver who fled the scene after hitting and killing a 16-year-old girl with his car on Monday.

"The investigation has identified the person responsible for this accident as the assistant to the chief of police in the Sovietsky district, who was drunk," the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

In April, a drunk police officer hit a woman and her nine-year-old granddaughter with his car near Moscow, killing the girl. In March, another drunk police officer ran into and killed a pregnant woman in Moscow.

Scandals involving Russian police officials - from murder to extortion to corruption - have increased in recent years.

Fatal traffic accidents are also frequent in Russia and are often linked to dilapidated roads, poor adherence to safety rules and drunk driving.