Two militants and two soldiers were killed in clashes in the troubled North Caucasus region of Chechnya, officials say.

Five other soldiers were wounded in the gunfight which broke out in the Vedensky district on Sunday morning, police said.

Russia is battling a low-level Islamist insurgency in several republics in the North Caucasus.

Troops faced an armed group involving several senior militant figures amid “deep snow and thick fog,” Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, himself a former militant, told reporters earlier today.