MOSCOW -- Two Russian military officers who were kidnapped in the capital
of rebel Chechnya turned up free on Thursday, three days after their abduction,
an official in the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Yuri Kolodkin, a duty officer for the ministry's division in southern Russia,
said he was informed by the Chechen Interior Ministry that Lt. Cols. Ivan
Nakhapetov and Yuri Vitvazev were free. The Russian Defense Ministry said
it could not immediately confirm the information, which was also reported
by the news agency Interfax.
The two officers were seized Monday by assailants who blocked their vehicle
as it traveled through the Chechen capital, Grozny, and hustled into an automobile.
Interfax, citing an unidentified official in the Zavodskoi Military Commisariat,
said the abductors' car later skidded and the two officers were able to escape
in the confusion and walked under cover of night to a Grozny police station.
The abduction underlined rising worries about security in the capital following
the Dec. 27 bombing of the Kremlin-backed Chechen civilian administration's
headquarters, in which at least 71 people were killed. The rebels have also(*)
shot down Russian helicopters with shoulder-fired missiles from the city's
outskirts.