By Will Stewart & Emma Wilson
A mystery fire has destroyed part of a key Russian missile-making plant in Moscow, say reports.
The blaze is at Avangard factory which manufactures ammunition for the S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems widely used in the war against Ukraine. The blaze covered some 540 square feet in workshop No. 12 of the Avangard plant, according to Moscow City news agency. The cause of the inferno and details of any casualties is currently unknown.
It appears to be the latest of a succession of fires reported at key Russian defence plants. The factory employs 2,500 workers, and it is the only one in the country manufacturing ammunition for the S-300 and S-400 air defence missiles.
This year fires have hit the machine-building plant Uralmash, in Yekaterinburg, and the MiG factory in Moscow, which is linked to the Kinzhal - or Dagger - fighter-carriers, involved in strikes against Ukraine. A report by TASS state news agency sought to portray the reported fire as a drill but other accounts indicated there had been a fire at the key Putin defence plant. There were claims that smoke at the scene was in fact not real.
“To bring the exercise conditions as close as possible to combat ones, pyrotechnic smoke devices were used in the premises,” a spokesman was quoted as saying. News of the fire comes at it emerged Russia's military death toll in Ukraine has now passed the 50,000 mark. According to the BBC, in the second year of the brutal Russia-Ukraine war, the death toll was 25% higher than in the first 12 months of the conflict.
More than 27,300 Russian soldiers died in the second year of combat, and the huge increase in deaths has been blamed on the ‘meat grinder’ strategy employed by military bosses in Moscow. The term was coined to describe the influx of soldiers being used to wear down Ukrainian forces.
It was also confirmed that President Vladimir Putin will not be invited to the 80th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings in June in light of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.