Six Chinese nationals were killed and nine more are missing after a fire broke out at a giant unfinished gas chemical complex in Russia’s far eastern Amur region.
A total of seven people died, and 152 people were treated for injuries, including 36 who were rushed to hospitals, the Amur Gas Chemical Complex said on Wednesday.
The fate of the nine missing Chinese nationals, which Amur Gas Chemical Complex said were employees of the contracting organization, remains unknown, it said in a statement.
The fire, which broke out on Tuesday, has been extinguished, it added.
An emergency services plane had arrived to transport the injured to hospitals in Russia, while search and rescue operations continue.
The complex, which bills itself as one of the world’s largest polyethylene and polypropylene producers, had yet to begin operations and is a joint project of Russian company Sibur and Chinese oil and gas company Sinopec.
The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on Aug. 25 that according to preliminary information, the fire started at an auxiliary technological section of the pyrolysis unit, a device that decomposes organic and carbon-containing waste.
It also said that the Amur Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case for violation of industrial safety requirements for hazardous production facilities.
It added that authorities have not yet suggested sabotage or terrorism as possible causes.
The Amur Gas Chemical Complex was expected to produce 2.3 million metric tons of polyethylene and 400,000 tons of polypropylene per year.
Russia-Ukraine Hostilities
Russian and Ukrainian forces have recently been targeting each other’s facilities.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian forces struck the Afipsky oil refinery in Krasnodar as Kyiv continues to target Russian energy infrastructure and retailer warehouses.
Veniamin Kondratyev, governor of the Krasnodar region in southern Russia, said in an Aug. 25 Telegram post that a fire broke out on the grounds of an oil refinery as a result of the attack.
He said two people were killed and another two were injured after drone debris fell on the Afipskaya railway station.
The Afipsky plant is mostly export-focused and processed 144,000 barrels of oil per day in 2024.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed in a Facebook post that it had struck the Afipsky plant.
It also stated that it had attacked two gas separation units at the Astrakhan gas processing plant in the Astrakhan Oblast overnight on Aug. 24.
Ukraine has hit the Afipsky plant several times in the past few months as part of Kyiv’s wider campaign of targeting Russia’s oil refineries and other critical infrastructure in an attempt to undermine Moscow’s war efforts and reduce Moscow’s revenue.
Ukrainian forces have hit several processing plants across the country, including the Ryazan oil refinery—which is one of the country’s largest—as well as the Filanovsky oil platform in the Caspian Sea and oil depots in the Tver and Stavropol regions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Aug. 22 that Kyiv had opened “Pandora’s box” by targeting Russia’s economic sectors.
“Well then, expect a response targeting your most sensitive economic sectors,” Putin said.
In an Aug. 26 post on X, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that over the past day, its forces had hit 16 targets in Russia.
“In particular, there were long-range responses against oil facilities, Russia’s oil wallet that finances the war. They also struck airfields, a missile unit, and infrastructure that is constantly used to launch attacks against Ukraine. Our sanctions also hit a military enterprise and Russian logistics,” he said.
Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is responding to Russian strikes and “doing so in a way that inevitably increases the cost of the war for the aggressor.”
“We are justly reducing Russia’s potential for aggression,” he added.
Victoria Friedman contributed to this report.
