Russia Says Mine in Chechnya Left 9 Soldiers Dead

Nine Russian soldiers died when an armored car hit a land mine, officials said Saturday as fighters in Chechnya continued to inflict casualties despite Moscow’s claims that the war is all but over.

The soldiers were part of a convoy returning to base after a five-day firefight near the Chechen town of Serzhen-Yurt that killed at least 13 Russian servicemen. Five servicemen were killed immediately and 11 wounded Friday when the armored car struck the mine in the central Shali district, said Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky, the Russian presidential spokesman on Chechnya.

Four of the wounded died later, he said.

A spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry said earlier that rebels ambushed the convoy after the mine exploded and that 11 soldiers were killed and 18 were wounded in the explosion and subsequent fighting. But Gen. Gennady Troshev, the commander of Russian forces in Chechnya, said there was no ambush.

In the earlier fighting at Serzhen-Yurt, a total of 13 Russian servicemen were killed and 18 wounded, Yastrzhembsky said. About 250 militants were fighting in the region, most of them soldiers of fortune, he said.

The military said Saturday that the fighting around Serzhen-Yurt was over and that a mopping-up operation was underway. The rebels have been “completely eliminated,” and combat units involved in the fighting were being withdrawn to their permanent bases, a military spokesman said.

But the rebels continued their hit-and-run strikes, staging a series of overnight attacks on Russian checkpoints and outposts in the towns surrounding Grozny, the Chechen capital, and in the suburbs of Gudermes, Interior Ministry officials said Saturday.

Troshev said that about 1,500 rebels were continuing to resist federal troops in Chechnya.

Also Saturday, the press service of Akhmad Kadyrov, Russia’s civilian administrator in Chechnya, said the return of refugees who fled the fighting in the republic is now a top priority, Itar-Tass reported. Kadyrov’s press service said he believes that all refugees could be returned to their homes within two or three months.