The Supreme Court last year overturned a jury's non-guilty verdict against officers Yevgeny Khudyakov and Sergei Arakcheyev following a Constitutional Court ruling that serious crimes committed in Chechnya be heard by courts martial rather than jurors.
Khudyakov and Arakcheyev have been charged with killing three employees of a building firm in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in January 2003.
The men are now being tried by a panel of three professional judges.
The trial has been adjourned until February 13.
The full-scale military offensive in Chechnya ended in 2000, when federal troops took control of the capital, Grozny. But militants continued resistance in Chechnya for several years and also carried out bloody terrorist attacks and hostage takings in other Russian regions.
Russian troops in the republic have also drawn international condemnation for human rights violations.
