Two people were killed and one was injured when an explosion hit a private house in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, a source in the security services said.
The blast hit the house in the Pliyevo village in the central Nazran region.
Police initially considered a gas explosion as the most likely cause of the accident, but investigators later said the blast could have been caused by an explosive devise, the source said.
A man who had been injured in the blast was admitted to hospital.
Russia has been battling Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus, which saw two brutal federal wars against separatists in Chechnya in the mid-1990s and the early 2000s. Ingushetia, along with the neighboring republic of Dagestan, has seen the brunt of the fighting in recent years.