Russian Envoy Abducted Near Chechen Border

President Boris N. Yeltsin’s special envoy to Chechnya, on a mission to crack down on abductions in the separatist republic, was kidnapped in broad daylight Friday near the Russian-Chechen border, authorities said.

Valentin Vlasov, who has served as the Kremlin’s representative to Chechnya since October, was stopped on a main highway by 10 gunmen dressed in camouflage who fired shots into the air. The kidnappers left his driver and bodyguard by the roadside and drove off with the envoy and his car.

The brazen abduction took place on May Day, one of Russia’s biggest patriotic holidays--compounding the political insult and impeding the investigation.

“The fact that the presidential envoy was kidnapped on a national holiday is a slap in the face to all Russian citizens, and especially top-ranking officials in Russia who claim the situation in Chechnya is under control,” said Yevgeny M. Ryabtsev, chief spokesman for Russia’s Interior Ministry.

Since fighting between Chechnya and Russia ended in 1996, hundreds of Russians and dozens of foreigners have been abducted and held for ransom by armed Chechen gangs, which often seize victims outside of Chechnya’s borders.

As Russia and Chechnya negotiate a formal end to their 21-month war, the flood of kidnappings has demonstrated Chechnya’s instability and called into question who is running the separatist republic.

The war destroyed Chechnya’s economy and left large numbers of unemployed but well-armed men, turning kidnapping for ransom into one of the republic’s few profitable industries. Kidnappers have demanded, and in some cases received, hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for their hostages.

“I am absolutely sure that a large-scale business has emerged in the Chechen Republic involving the kidnapping of people, and that the top leaders of Chechnya are directly or indirectly involved,” said an angry Igor Y. Malashenko, president of Russia’s NTV television, after paying more than $1 million last year to win the freedom of a star reporter and her two crew members.

But after Vlasov’s kidnapping Friday, some Chechen officials accused Russia of masterminding the abduction of its own envoy to damage continuing negotiations.

“It is the same forces behind today’s incident that have been involved in previous kidnappings, and they are controlled by Russia’s secret services,” Chechen Foreign Minister Movladi Udugov said in an interview on Echo of Moscow radio. “Since an official has been kidnapped, it means this was a purely political action. Only the last idiot could expect ransom to be paid for an official.”

Vlasov has worked on Chechen issues for more than two years and was active in peace talks that ended the fighting without resolving the key question of whether Chechnya is an independent republic.

More recently, he had been negotiating an agreement that would have brought the security services of the two governments together to cooperate in going after kidnappers.

“The criminals are deliberately trying not only to cash in but also to prevent the signing of agreements between Russian and Chechen law enforcement agencies that could make their lives harder and curb abductions,” Chechen Security Minister Islam Khalimov said.

On Friday, Vlasov was apparently traveling from Grozny, the Chechen capital, to southern Russia when the gunmen stopped his car about 10 a.m.

Along with Vlasov and his driver was a bodyguard assigned by the Chechen government who was armed with an AK-47. The bodyguard and driver were detained by Chechen authorities and taken to Grozny for questioning.

The envoy had turned down a Chechen offer of more extensive security, said Supyan Akhmadov, deputy head of the Directorate for Prevention of Kidnapping of People in the Chechen Republic.

“To take only one driver and one bodyguard on such a risky trip,” Akhmadov told NTV. “With these lax security precautions, such a high-ranking official would be kidnapped even in Russia.”

The incident occurred near the village of Assinovskaya, which is officially in Ingushetia on the Russian side of the border but is policed by Chechnya.

It is the same area where the NTV crew was kidnapped last year. The television station reported Friday evening that the area is controlled by a Chechen field commander who has allegedly made almost $2 million from kidnappings.

Russian news agencies said Yeltsin was informed of the kidnapping and that Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov was monitoring the situation.

Ivan P. Rybkin, a Yeltsin advisor and Vlasov’s predecessor as special envoy to Chechnya, was dispatched from Moscow to the region.

“There is very little doubt that whoever did it was not aiming at Vlasov personally,” Interior Ministry spokesman Ryabtsev said. “They wanted to spoil the festive mood in Russia and to send a clear message to the Russian authorities: ‘Chechnya is independent and we can do whatever we want.’ ”

The precise number of kidnap victims now held in Chechnya is unclear. As of Jan. 1, 73 hostages were in captivity in the small, mountainous republic, the U.S. State Department reported last week. Among them were 15 foreigners, including five journalists and 10 representatives of nongovernmental organizations.

Some of those hostages have been released, and others have been kidnapped to take their place.

United Nations officials said that as of Friday, nine foreigners were being held hostage.

Times staff writer Tyler Marshall in Washington and Alexei Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.