A major explosion and fire has destroyed a Russian factory that makes engines Vladimir Putin‘s tanks and armored vehicles.
Dramatic footage shows the moment the Chelyabinsk tractor factory, located in the Ural Mountains close to the border with Kazakhstan, goes up in flames.
Locals reported a powerful ‘explosion’, and footage from passers-by shows a fireball rising high into the air as the factory burned.
The precise cause of the inferno is not yet known, although key Russian installations have been repeatedly hit by sabotage or kamikaze drone attacks.
Chelyabinsk appears to be out of reach for drones from Ukraine, but a criminal investigation has been launched into the exact cause of the explosion.
The massive explosion at the Chelyabinsk tractor factory lit up the night sky late on Sunday
The light from the blast was so bright that it overwhelmed the cameras trained on the factory
Images show flames rising high into the sky at the factory, which makes engines for tanks and armored vehicles for the Russian army
Dramatic video shows the moment a huge fireball is created by an explosion at the factory
It is currently unknown if anyone was injured or killed in the explosion
Images from passers-by show emergency services, including fire trucks, on the scene
The cause of the explosion has not yet been revealed, with Russia blaming a ‘short circuit’ as the preliminary reason
The plant is under US and Ukrainian sanctions as “an enterprise specializing in the production of diesel engines for military equipment for the needs of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”
It is a major supplier for a range of important military firepower, such as the T-72, T-90 Proryv tanks, the BMPT Terminator, Akatsiya self-propelled artillery units and the Msta-S and Koalitsiya-SV complexes.
The initial Russian explanation was a transformer explosion caused by a ‘short circuit’.
However, a short circuit is used to explain every fire at a major facility in Russia, and authorities routinely downplay fires at key facilities during the war.
The factory is currently being used to repair military equipment for use in Putin’s war against Ukraine, it is understood.
Local sources later said the fire was under control, but it was unclear to what extent the fire had affected the factory’s operations.
The destruction came a day after Ukraine launched a major kamikaze drone attack on Russia, its heaviest attack in months.
Three of Moscow’s international airports – Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky – were closed and flights were suspended or canceled due to the attack.
The city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, complained of a “mass attack” on the Russian capital.
The strikes come a day after the heaviest attacks on Kiev by Putin kamikaze drones since the start of the war 22 months ago – when 71 of 75 Iranian-made Shahed UAVs were downed by Ukrainian air defenses.
Russia was forced to shoot down eleven drones last night and another nine early this morning.
In Tula, someone hit a residential building as it fell to the ground – with dramatic footage showing the moment of the explosion.
Three people, a man and two women, required medical attention and people were evacuated from the building.
During today’s attack, wires near central Moscow caught fire
Ukraine has launched a major kamikaze drone attack on Russia, the heaviest attack in months
A drone was spotted in the sky in Tula, Russia, 185 miles south of Moscow
A building was partially destroyed after the drone attacks on Russia
Three people, a man and two women, required medical attention and people were evacuated from a building
Russia was forced to shoot down eleven drones last night and another nine early this morning
A window has been badly destroyed after today’s drone attack on Russia
Later in the morning, a new drone swarm was reported in Tula, a region where Putin’s friend and former bodyguard Alexei Dyumin is governor and where he once saved the dictator from an attack by a brown bear.
‘Loud explosions’ were reported over the city. “It flew right over us,” a local resident said amid unconfirmed reports that two kamikaze drones had been shot down.
And a mysterious fire set fire to an elite Mosfilmovskaya Street in Moscow, blocking all traffic, according to state media reports.
“The circumstances of the incident and information about the victims are being clarified,” media outlet Astra reported, suggesting an “electric” inferno.
In the Moscow region, around the capital, five drones were reportedly shot down in the Naro-Fominsk, Odintsovo, Ramensky and Podolsk districts.
In three cases there was damage to buildings on the ground. It was not immediately clear whether any of the drones had hit strategic targets.
More drones were downed in the Kaluga, Bryansk and Smolensk regions as Ukraine responded to the attack on Kiev a day earlier.
Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Moscow was the main target. “A massive drone strike was attempted overnight,” he said.
Elsewhere in the Russian-occupied Donetsk People’s Republic, power was cut after an apparent Ukrainian attack on the region’s power grid.
Putin-appointed occupation leader Denis Pushlin said: “At night the enemy tried to damage the region’s energy system.
“Unfortunately, not everything was shot due to the massive attack.”
Parts of the city of Donetsk and Makeevka plus almost all of Mariupol were without power.
The Russian attack in Kiev on Saturday was the most intense of the war.
Serhiy Popko, head of the capital’s administration, called it “the most massive drone airstrike on Kiev.”
“Our soldiers shot down most of the drones. Unfortunately, not all,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“But we continue to work to strengthen our air defenses and shoot down more.”
Overnight, Russia launched nine more Iranian drones at Ukraine.
Eight were reportedly shot.