Moscow - Russia's second-ranking official in Chechnya has been killed in a rebel ambush.
Russia's deputy representative, Mr Sergei Zverev, was killed on Tuesday when his car drove over a remote-controlled landmine and rebels simultaneously opened fire. Mr Zverev's female assistant was also killed while Grozny's pro-Moscow mayor, Mr Supyan Mokhchayev, was wounded in the attack.
The attack came as a boobytrap blast outside a military base killed a Russian soldier and wounded 14 others, four of them seriously, in the southern Russian city of Volvograd, north-east of the Chechen border. Moscow's top official in Chechhnya, Mr Nikolai Koshman, has flown to Chechnya to investigate the explosion.
