Russian fighter-bomber crash and explosion engulfs residential tower

A residential building in Russia has been engulfed in a huge fireball after a fighter-bomber slammed into a suburban area, with tonnes of fuel exploding.

The Russian military jet crashed near the southern border with Ukraine in the port of Yeysk, on the Sea of Azov, after experiencing engine failure.

Footage on social media shows an apartment tower in flames, with reports that five stories were ablaze — the upper floors had collapsed and about 45 apartments were damaged.

Agencies said the pilots had ejected and officials were trying to establish information about casualties on the ground but there were early reports of four deaths and six people missing.

Russia’s state Investigative Committee, which deals with serious crimes, said it had opened a criminal case and sent investigators to the scene.

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The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had ordered all necessary help to be provided to victims.

He ordered the health and emergencies ministers to fly to the region.

Authorities have reserved 600 beds in hotels and guest houses to house those who had to leave the building, RIA news agency said.

Krasnodar regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said the fire had broken out in a nine-storey building.

“The fire engulfed several floors at once. Seventeen apartments were preliminarily damaged,” he said on Telegram.

Russia’s RIA news agency said the plane was a Sukhoi Su-34, a supersonic medium-range fighter-bomber, and crashed during a training flight from a military airfield.

Yeysk is on the coast of the Sea of Azov, which separates southern Ukraine and southern Russia.

Kamikaze drones shot down

Meanwhile Ukraine claims to have shot down 36 of 42 ‘kamikaze’ drones during Russia’s wave of attacks on the centre of Kyiv during morning rush hour on Monday.

Ukraine said the attacks were carried out by Iran-made ‘suicide drones’, which fly to their target and detonate.

The Euopean Union has vowed to uncover “concrete evidence” of Iran supplying Russia with weapons after Russia acquired new drones from over the summer.

Iran has again denied supplying weapons.

The drone assault was the second time in a week Russia unleashed strikes across Ukraine while its forces face setbacks on the battlefield.

Soldiers fired into the air trying to shoot down the drones after blasts rocked central Kyiv early on Monday.

An official in Ukraine’s presidential office said three people were killed in an attack on a residential building in Kyiv. Black smoke poured out of the windows of a blasted building and emergency service workers toiled to douse flames.

“I have never been so afraid… It is murder, it is simply murder, there are no other words for it,” said Vitalii Dushevskiy, 29, a food delivery courier who rents an apartment in the blasted building.

His flatmate, who gave his name only as Nazar, said they had tried to leave their apartment only to find the staircase “all gone”.

Nearby, Elena Mazur, 52, was searching for her mother, who had managed to call her to say she was buried under rubble.

“She is not picking up the phone,” Mazur said, hoping she had been rescued and taken to hospital.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had carried out a “massive” attack on military targets and energy infrastructure across Ukraine using high-precision weapons.

Reuters saw pieces of a drone used in the attack that bore the words: “For Belgorod” — an apparent reference to Ukrainian shelling of a Russian region bordering Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi later said there had been deaths in other cities too in Monday’s attacks.

The strikes came exactly one week after Russia unleashed its heaviest aerial bombardment of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities since the start of the war.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app that “the enemy can attack our cities, but it won’t be able to break us”.

“The occupiers will get only fair punishment and condemnation of future generations. And we will get victory,” he said.

The new United Nations human rights chief, Volker Turk of Austria, said drone attacks on civilians had to stop.

The US embassy in Kyiv also condemned the “desperate and reprehensible” drone attacks. Russia denies targeting civilians.

Sanctions against Iran

Some European Union foreign ministers, gathering for talks in Luxembourg on Monday, called for new sanctions against Iran if Tehran’s involvement in Russia’s war on Ukraine is proven.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Russia should be expelled from the Group of 20 major economies and other international groups following the drone attacks.

“Those who give orders to attack critical infrastructure to freeze civilians and organise total mobilisation to cover the frontline with corpses, cannot sit at the same table with leaders of G20 for sure,” he wrote on Twitter.

-with AAP