"Eight soldiers and one civilian were killed, another 13 people, including two civilians, were injured as a result of a terrorist attack with the use of an explosive device on a military bus in the Syrian Desert south of Palmyra today at noon," the ministry said in a statement.
A security source told Sputnik earlier on Tuesday that a bus explosion in the governorate of Homs had killed nine soldiers and injured another 22 troops.
The source added that the bomb had been planted by terrorists belonging to the Daesh* terrorist group.
* Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other countries.