The quartet of Alexander Loginov, Maxim Tsvetkov, Said Karimulla Khalili and Daniil Serokhostov clocked a combined time of 1hr 11min 06.1sec to beat Germany by seven seconds.

Germany finished with two spares as they ended in second, while Belarus ended in third place with six spares, and 23 seconds off the pace.

Italy finished in fourth place, 30 seconds off the podium. 

Russia owed much to Loginov and Tsvetkov, who spearheaded their team to a convincing victory.

"The weather was quite good today so at the shooting range, it was not that tough for me," said Tsvetkov.

"I was just trying to shoot clean and have a good result. 

"I also felt quite well on the tracks so everything went well."

There had earlier been controversy as Norway had to wait at the shooting range and ran two penalty loops due to a range issue in the second shooting of the first leg.

This took Norway two minutes, which was deducted from their time, and led to them finishing in seventh place.

The World Cup at the German venue is scheduled to conclude with the women's 10km and men's 12.5km pursuit races.