A young woman blew herself up on Saturday near a police checkpoint in the Chechen capital Grozny in southern Russia but nobody else was killed or injured, RIA news agency said.

Police asked her to stop and present her documents but when she refused to obey they saw she was carrying a home-made explosive device. They fired a warning shot and she detonated the device, Interfax news agency reported.

The once restive province of Chechnya has been mostly calm in recent years under the iron rule of regional strongman Ramzan Kadyrov after Moscow fought two wars with separatists in the 1990s and 2000s following the breakup of the Soviet Union.

However, in August militants staged a series of attacks on police targets in Chechnya and Daesh claimed responsibility, without providing any evidence.

The wider North Caucasus region remains volatile, however, with unemployment and corruption pushing some young men to embrace terrorism.