A Russian rocket attack on Wednesday killed three people and wounded at least seven others in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, which is near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Ukrainian officials said.
The number of victims could rise in the attack, which damaged a residential area, regional Gov. Yuriy Malashko said on Telegram.
The city lies about 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since the early weeks of the war. Shelling in the plant’s surroundings have raised persistent fears of a nuclear accident.
In Russia, an explosion on the grounds of a factory that makes optical equipment for Russia’s security forces north of Moscow killed one person, wounded 60 others and left at least eight people unaccounted for, officials said.
Russian officials did not provide a suspected cause of the explosion in the city of Sergiev Posad, which produced a tall plume of black smoke and added to jitters over recent nighttime drone attacks on Moscow. Earlier, officials said Russian air defenses shot down two drones aimed at the capital overnight, and they accused Ukraine of an attempted attack.
The blast occurred at a warehouse storing fireworks but was on the grounds of the Zagorsk optics manufacturing plant, said Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the region surrounding the Russian capital. The explosion damaged 38 apartment buildings and prompted an evacuation of nearby areas, he said.
Vorobyov said the company rented out the warehouse for storage, but he later claimed the plant itself was mostly producing pyrotechnics. He said the Zagorsk Optical-Mechanical Plant “has had nothing to do with optics or mechanics for a long time.”
The company’s website says it still manufactures those products, as well as medical equipment. A 1995 report by the US Department of Commerce described the factory as “a producer of precision optical equipment for the military.”