Russian gunpowder factory explosion kills 5 ahead of Alaska summit

A huge explosion ripped through a gunpowder factory in Russia on Friday as fighting also continued in Ukraine ahead of a bombshell summit between Presidents Putin and Trump in Alaska.

Five people were killed and at least 20 were injured, 10 of them seriously, in the blast that sparked a huge fire at the Elastik gunpowder plant near the city of Ryazan, just over 100 miles southeast of Moscow.

More bodies are feared trapped under the rubble, local reports said.

The blast was not immediately blamed on Ukraine, with local media noting an earlier explosion at the same factory killed 17 people in 2021.

However, it came as Ukraine forces hit a Russian oil refinery in Samara Oblast with a drone overnight, and also targeted an enemy ship loaded with Iranian-supplied weapons in the port of Olya on the Caspian Sea.

The attacks came even as Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, encouraged Trump to get a cease-fire deal from Putin when they meet in Alaska on Friday.

The death toll at the Elastik factory is expected to rise, with more bodies trapped under the rubble where more than 100 workers were evacuated, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing Russian media reports that said at least 100 people had been evacuated.

Dramatic video shows an enormous plume of black smoke and huge flames leaping into the sky, visible from miles around.

No official cause for the blast has been given. But Russian media has blamed possible safety violations at the plant where 17 people were killed in a 2021 blast.

Meanwhile, Russia may be close to a new breakthrough on the frontlines in Ukraine, with its forces encircling the key city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region, according to open-source online mapping site DeepState.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that Russia is desperate to make gains on the battlefield in order to strengthen Putin’s hand at Friday’s Alaska summit.