The radio-controlled land mine exploded late Friday while the military vehicle was moving near the village of Berkart-Yurt on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Grozny, the regional branch of Russia’s Interior Ministry said in a statement. The blast wounded two soldiers and damaged the vehicle, it said.

The mostly Muslim region has been ravaged by more than a decade of separatist fighting. While large-scale battles in Chechnya ended years ago, rebels continue to target federal forces and local collaborators in regular raids and land mine explosions.

On Friday, authorities in Grozny detained five young men on charges of trading in automatic weapons and ammunition and also arrested a suspected rebel during a security sweep in the southern Nozhai-Yurt region.

The Kremlin has increasingly relied on local police and paramilitary forces in hunting down the rebels, and rights activists say that arbitrary arrests, torture and other abuses against civilians remain widespread.

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