VLADIKAVKAZ - A mine blast killed seven Russian servicemen near Chechnya in the worst recent episode of spillover violence from the two-year war.

A remote-controlled mine was set off Friday as a truck carrying Russian troops passed by in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, a Russian republic bordering Chechnya, police said Saturday.

Four servicemen died on the scene and by Saturday three had died in the hospital. Another three remain hospitalized, Russian news reports said.

"This is an attempt to destabilize the social-political situation in the republic," Dagestan police spokesman Abdul Musayev said on TV6 television. "The terrorists who have been pushed out of Chechnya by federal forces are trying to move the conflict into the neighboring regions."

Chechnya-based rebels raided villages in Dagestan in August 1999. Those attacks, along with apartment-house bombings in Russian cities that killed more than 300, prompted Moscow to send troops back to Chechnya. A 1994-96 war ended in de facto independence for the region.

International officials have urged negotiations to end the conflict, and concern about refugees and alleged abuses by Russian troops against Chechen civilians has revived in recent days.

The secretary-general of the Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights watchdog and a frequent critic of the Russian military campaign, said in an interview published Saturday that life in Chechnya remains "far from normal."

"A normalization of daily life is needed, since militarization always leads to human rights violations," Walter Schwimmer said in an interview with Russia's Noviye Izvestia newspaper.

Schwimmer cited "horrible conditions" in camps for refugees, where toilets and protection from the icy winter are scarce.

Despite Friday's attack in Dagestan and daily Russian casualties in Chechnya, a top Russian general said Saturday he was confident the war was coming to an end.

"The rebels' situation in Chechnya can now be compared to the situation of a wounded animal that has been driven into a corner," said Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin, chief of the General Staff of the armed forces.

Russian aviation on Saturday bombed rebel bases in the Nozhai-Yurt district, and artillery pounded targets in Nozhai-Yurt, Vedeno and the Itum-Kale districts, an official in Chechnya's Moscow-appointed administration said.

Eight servicemen were killed in rebel ambushes on Russian convoys and in mine blasts within Chechnya over the past 24 hours, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Security agents detained two servicemen trying to sell a grenade launcher and ammunition to a rebel group, the Federal Security Service's Chechnya office said Saturday, according to ITAR-Tass.