Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov and a top Russian general were killed in a powerful blast in a stadium in the republic's capital Grozny on Sunday.

The blast occurred underneath a VIP-seating area in the Dynamo stadium during a ceremony marking Russia's 59th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

Kadyrov and General Valery Baranov, head of the Joint Army Command of the North Caucasus, were killed at the scene of the blast. They died after the explosion tore through the stadium where the president was attending a Victory Day celebration.

At least 25 people were wounded in the blast, officials said.

The explosion was reportedly caused by a land mine that was planted under VIP seats at the stadium, officials said.

It is not immediately clear how many people were killed in the incident. Media reports said earlier a large number of people were injured.

The 52-year-old president, a one-time Muslim cleric, was elected the republic's president earlier this year.

Russia's independent NTB TV channel reported that people in the stadium were being dispersed with the help of local servicemen.

Russia has been fighting separatists in Chechnya since the early 1990s.

Profile of Akhmad Kadyrov

Kadyrov, father of four children, was born on Aug. 23, 1951, in Kazakhstan's Karaganda. His family returned to Chechnya from exile in 1957.

He began his Islamic studies in 1980 in Uzbekistan and graduated from the Tashkent Islamic Institute in 1986. In 1990 and the following year he studied at the Shariah department of Amman Islamic University in Jordan.

Serving as the deputy imam of central mosque in Chechnya's Gudermes from 1986 to 1988, he was appointed Chechnya's deputy mufti in 1993.

He fought the Russian troops during the first war between Russia and Chechen separatists from 1994 to 1996. Elected mufti under Chechnya's separatist government in 1995, he called for a jihad, or a holy war, against Russia.

In October 1999, the second war between the two sides broke out.Kadyrov changed his stance and sided with Moscow after Chechnya-based insurgents mounted an incursion into neighboring Dagestan in1999, one of the events that touched off the second war.

In June 2000, he was appointed Chechnya's administration chief by Russian President Vladimir Putin. In March 2003, he became the acting president of Chechnya. In October 2003, he won the presidential election in Chechnya and became the president.

He has escaped several assassination attempts plotted by the Chechen rebels who branded him as a traitor.

Source: Xinhua