There was a massive explosion of unknown cause earlier this month at a military factory in central Russia’s Chelyabinsk region resulting in a high casualty rate. After many days of a search and rescue operation the death toll has risen to 23 at the Plastmass plant, Russian media has indicated in a fresh update on casualties.
The plant produces explosives and artillery ammo for the military, so the resulting disaster was extensive and significant. It ranks as among the highest death tolls in terms of a single blast incident at a military factory in Russia throughout the course of the Ukraine war.
An entire building at the plant was completely leveled in the blast, resulting in people being buried under the rubble, and making rescue efforts extremely difficult.
“The final list of victims of the tragedy includes 23 people,” the regional government confirmed on Telegram, revising their earlier toll of 13 dead and 10 missing. Rescue efforts lasted a week, which involved painstaking efforts of combing through rubble.
A formal investigation has opened into potential industrial safety violations. Given the ongoing large-scale drone attacks out Ukraine, there was initial speculation the plant was hit by drones; however, authorities have pushed back that this was caused by a drone attack.
Authorities have pushed back on it being a drone attack, but this remains a possibility:
Reports about Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian town of Kopyesk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, located over 1,600km from the border with Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/OWY3LhQ7Lf
— Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (@Archer83Able) October 22, 2025
The plant is all the way east in the Urals, which does make a drone attack at that range unlikely – though not impossible. A drone would have to have traverse at least half the land mass of Russia to make it there.
Western media sources have authenticated some of the video which emerged in the aftermath. “BBC Verify has located two videos of the explosion. One is CCTV showing the moment of the blast, captured around 3km (1.9 miles) from the sitem” BBC documented. “The other shows the fireball filmed from a car driving down an adjacent road.” But there doesn’t seem to have emerged any close-up footage of the moment of the explosion.
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