11 die in combat in Chechnya - details

8 Russian servicemen and 3 Chechen policemen were killed in the vicinity of Grozny on May 17. The Caucasian Knot correspondent learnt about details of the happening at the Chechen interior ministry on May 19. The police believe the servicemen and policemen were lured into a trap thoroughly prepared by rebels.

"In the morning of May 17, soldiers of the Russian interior ministry's reconnaissance unit jointly with Chechen police officers conducted usual engineer reconnaissance in the vicinity of Grozny. They examined a road leading from Grozny to the village of Alkhan-Yurt, Chechnya's Urus-Martan district. Near the Chernorechye settlement, the group found a landmine, which was set off by rebels at that very moment when a police officer directed his steps towards it. After it, the bandits tried to escape in a nearby forest. The servicemen and policemen loaded onto the armor personnel carrier (APC) that accompanied them and started chasing the rebels. But after driving a bit more than one kilometer along the village road, the APC hit a high-capacity landmine. All the eleven people who were in the armored vehicle died," an officer of the Chechen interior ministry said to the Caucasian Knot correspondent.

The APC was literally scattered into pieces, he said. The bodies of some killed people have not even been found, only their small parts.

The source at the ministry also imparted the names of the killed Chechen policemen and federal soldiers. They are three policemen: Lieutenants Abdul-Malik Kagirov and Muslim Gabarov, and Private Said-Magomed Takharov; and commander of the 46th reconnaissance company Senior Lieutenant Sergey Kovrigin and his seven subordinates: Sergeant Pavel Sidorov, Junior Sergeants Viktor Shitik and Vasily Tuchkovsky, Privates Grigory Durov, Konstantin Ishmaeev, Ridal Nisapov and Serik Konsov.

Editors note: See also the article "11 soldiers die in Chechnya".