No indication yet that this was a Ukrainian rocket attack, drone attack, or even partisan sabotage. But it sounds militarily significant.
Local officials in Russia say an explosion at an optical plant in the city of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 kilometers outside Moscow, killed one person and injured at least 43 people on August 9.
Five of the injured are in intensive care with serious burns or head injuries, according to the city administration’s Telegram account. Some of the 43 people admitted to a regional hospital have shrapnel injuries, it said.
Officials at the city’s central hospital said that a woman had succumbed to wounds sustained in the blast.
Independent Telegram channel Baza shared images of a tall cloud of smoke and identified the site as the Zagorsk Optical and Mechanical Plant, which produces night-vision and other optical devices for the military.
Russian officials later confirmed the location.
Russian news agency TASS has quoted the emergency services as rejecting assertions on social media that the cause of the blast was a drone attack.
That speculation has been fueled by months of remote attacks in Russia that Moscow blames on Kyiv along with Russian reports it “thwarted” two fresh drone attacks near Moscow overnight.
TASS said the blast happened where pyrotechnics were being kept and destroyed a 1,600-square-meter warehouse.
An unexplained fire damaged the same Zagorsk plant in June 2022.
Seemed to blow up real good:
You can’t trust TASS, and it’s entirely possible that it’s your standard negligent Russian military industrial accident. But why would you store pyrotechnics next to an optics factory?
Other news notes that the plant makes optics for Russian security forces. Keep in mind that obtaining optical sights for their tanks has been an ongoing concern for Russia.
Developing…