MOSCOW (Reuters) – A fire at an industrial plant in Russia’s Volga region is under control, local authorities said on Saturday, days after the blaze, reportedly at an oil depot strategically positioned near a military air base began following a Ukrainian drone attack.
The authorities on Wednesday said “an industrial plant” had been hit, without disclosing further details about the site.
“The area of the fire at an industrial enterprise in Engels was reduced by 80%. The amount of smoke has also decreased significantly,” the governor of the Saratov region, Roman Busargin said in a Telegram post on Saturday.
It was not clear whether a state of emergency, declared in Engels, a city of 200,000 people some 730 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow, was still in effect. Two firefighters died earlier this week while trying to stop the fire spreading.
The Ukrainian military said on Wednesday it had set fire to an oil depot that serves an air base for Russian nuclear-capable bombers.
Engels is hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine. In December 2022, three Russian air force personnel were killed when a drone was shot down there.
(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Barbara Lewis)
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