VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia, 27 March 2004 — Ten Russian servicemen died in Chechnya when a military officer driving a heavy truck out of a base without permission got stuck in a minefield and the vehicle exploded.
The blast occurred Thursday evening at a Russian military base in the southern town of Shali, which the officer left despite a ban on doing so at such a late hour, said Vladimir Gerasimov, a spokesman for the regional branch of Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry.
Gerasimov said the officer in the truck and seven other servicemen who tried to stop him were killed when the truck smashed the gate, drove into a minefield around the base and blew up. Three more servicemen were wounded.
A spokesman for the federal military headquarters in the North Caucasus region said later that the death toll had reached 10. An official with the Moscow-backed Chechen civilian administration, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave a different account. He said that two drunk soldiers had tried to drive out of the base while an officer and several troops tried to stop them.
An official investigation started and Gen. Vladimir Boldyrev, the top military commander in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, arrived at the base to head the probe.
On Thursday, rebels ambushed a federal convoy near the southern village of Samashki, killing two police officers.
