A man suspected of shooting and injuring a Russian man in a gun attack in Phuket on Wednesday has been arrested, police said.

The suspect, who was identified as Artur Legay from Kazakhstan, was detained by immigration police at Phuket International Airport on Thursday morning.

At around 11.45am on Wednesday, the Phuket 191 emergency response centre received a report that a foreign man who was sitting in a car was seriously injured in a gun attack in front of a café.

According to witnesses and security camera footage from the area, when the car arrived in front of the café, a man, whose face was covered, who had earlier arrived on a motorcycle, approached the car. He then fired four shots with a handgun at the man sitting inside through the windscreen. After the shooting, the attacker fled on the motorcycle.

The man in the car, later identified as Dmitry Aleynikov, a 44-year-old Russian national, sustained gunshot wounds to the chest, right armpit and left arm. Rescuers extracted the unconscious and bleeding man from the vehicle and rushed him to Thalang Hospital.