A fresh wave of attacks hit Chechnya when a landmine blasted a convoy carrying its interim leader and 18 elite security forces were killed in clashes.
News reports said a bodyguard was killed when a mine struck a motorcade carrying the pro-Moscow acting president, Sergei Abramov, through the devastated regional capital, Grozny.
Abramov, who took over after President Ahmad Kadyrov was killed by a bomb on 9 May, was travelling at high speed in an armoured car and escaped injury.
His convoy was returning from an inspection of construction sites of buildings shattered in Russia's second post-Soviet attempt to crush resistance, launched in 1999.
Interfax said two other members of Abramov's staff were hurt.
"I am alive. Everything is all right," Abramov told First Channel television about 90 minutes after the blast.
A former prime minister of Chechnya, 32-year-old Abramov was thrust into the top job when Kadyrov was killed in a bomb attack during public celebrations.
Elections for a new president are to be held on 29 August, but Abramov is not in the running.
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Abramov was appointed president last May. (Al-Jazeera)