GROZNY, November 30 (RIA Novosti) - Two interior troops soldiers were injured in a mine blast in Russia's North Caucasus Republic of Chechnya, local police said on Sunday.

The soldiers hit a landmine in the mountainous Vedeno district in southern Chechnya on Saturday and were hospitalized with injuries of various gravity, the police said.

"The mine exploded when the interior troops soldiers were carrying out reconnaissance and ambush operations in a forest near the village of Elistanzhi in the Vedeno district at about midnight yesterday," the police said.

Chechnya, a largely Muslim republic in Russia's North Caucasus, was the site of two brutal separatist wars in the 1990s and early 2000s and is still plagued by violence, including militant attacks on local police and authorities, and federal forces.