Five soldiers were killed and six injured in a clash with militants in Russia's troubled southern republic of Chechnya, a police source said on Friday.

The fighting occurred in the North Caucasus republic's Urus-Martan district, southwest of the capital Grozny late on Thursday, a police official said.

Chechnya has seen a dramatic surge in violence recently, undermining efforts to bring life back to normal in the region after two brutal separatist wars.

In January, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev decided to include Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Circassia into the new North Caucasus Federal District and appointed Krasnoyarsk governor and former business executive Alexander Khloponin as his envoy there in a bid to improve the economic situation in the volatile region.

MOSCOW, February 5 (RIA Novosti)