An explosion yesterday on the grounds of a factory north of Moscow that makes optical equipment for Russia’s security forces injured 45 people, six of them severely, officials said.
The blast occurred at a warehouse storing fireworks, although it was on the grounds of the Zagorsk Optical-Mechanical Plant, Moscow Oblast Governor Andrei Vorobyov said.
Vorobyov said the company had rented out the warehouse for storage, but later claimed the plant itself was mostly producing pyrotechnics.
Photo: AFP / Moskva News Agency
He said the facility “has had nothing to do with optics or mechanics for a long time,” even though the company’s Web site says it still manufactures those products, as well as medical apparatus.
Whatever the cause, the explosion produced a tall plume of black smoke and added to Russian jitters over nighttime drone attacks on Moscow, as well as alarm about smoke over the port of Sevastopol in Crimea yesterday.
The Zagorsk plant explosion blew out windows in nearby apartment buildings and prompted the evacuation of the surrounding area, the regional governor said.
Five people were feared trapped under rubble.
Earlier, officials said Russian air defenses shot down two drones aimed at Moscow overnight, in what they described as Ukraine’s latest attempt to strike the Russian capital in an apparent campaign to unnerve Muscovites and take the war to Russia.
The drones were intercepted on their approach to the capital and there were no casualties, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
The Russian Ministry of Defense described the incident as a “terrorist attack.”
One of the drones came down in Domodedovo District south of Moscow, and the other fell near the Minsk highway west of the city, Sobyanin said.
Domodedovo Airport is one of Moscow’s busiest.
It was not clear from where the drones were launched, and Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment. Ukraine usually neither confirms nor denies such attacks.
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