One person has been killed after a building used by Russia’s Federal Security Service caught fire on Thursday in a city just 43 miles from the Ukraine border.
Citing local emergency services, Russian state media reported that two people were also injured in the fire in Rostov.
Footage posted on social media appeared to show fire engulfing parts of the building, which belonged to the regional border patrol section of the FSB, with plumes of thick smoke rising over the city.
Regional Governor Vasily Golubev said an electrical short circuit caused the fire, which in turn “caused containers of fuel and lubricants to explode.”
Citing anonymous police sources, local media previously reported that the fire was caused by the detonation of ammunition stored in a warehouse.
A series of explosions were heard every 10 seconds after the ammunition caught fire, eyewitnesses told Tass news agency.
One eyewitness told Russian news outlet 161.ru: ”The explosion was so strong the rooftop rose up and fell back.”
Emergency services were dispatched to the area which has been cordoned off, local authorities said.
“Details are being clarified,” the press office of the emergency services in Rostov-on-Don said in comments reported by the state-run TASS news agency.
The emergency services said that the fire had expanded to cover 880 square metres of ground.
“On the territory of the border department of the FSB, a fire broke out on the second floor of a two-story brick building on an area of 880 square meters. The fire was assigned the second number of complexity,” the emergency services said.
The incident comes as the United States released a de-classified video showing Russia’s intercept of a U.S. military surveillance drone downed over the Black Sea two days ago, images that the White House said exposed how Moscow was lying about what happened.
The downing of the U.S. MQ-9 drone on Tuesday was the first direct U.S.-Russian incident since the Ukraine war began, worsening already tense relations between Washington and Moscow as both countries publicly traded blame.
In the video, a Russian Su-27 fighter jet can be seen coming very close to the drone and dumping fuel near it, in what U.S. officials said was an apparent effort to damage the American aircraft as it flew.
