BREAKING: Explosion, Heavy Fighting Reported in Grozny, Chechnya
by VOA News December 03, 2014
A powerful explosion and sounds of heavy fighting have been reported in Chechnya's capital of Grozny, according to sources on Twitter and some media outlets in the region.
Multiple sources on Twitter are reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin's motorcade has been seen pulling into the Kremlin in the middle of the night, around the time the unrest unfolded in Grozny.
Unconfirmed sources are pointing to the presense of Islamist militants in the city.
Grozny has been the epicenter of two bloody wars in the past two decades between Russian forces and Chechen rebels seeking independence from Moscow.
Some Russian media outlets are reporting via Twitter that three policemen have been shot dead in fire fights with militants. According to some tweets, the militants number in the hundreds.
Some purported eyewitnesses are tweeting about the presence of tanks and helicopters in and around the city.
The explosion is said to have occurred in a major local publishing house.
There is no independent confirmation of the developments, which come just hours before a widely anticipated speech by President Putin before the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia's parliament.
The last time Putin spoke before the chamber's lawmakers was following Russian's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.
Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim constituent republic of the Russian Federation, has been ruled since 2005 by Kremlin loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov.
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