A Russian military bomber crashed Monday into the courtyard of an apartment complex in the Russian resort town of Yeysk, which is a few dozen miles across the Sea of Azov from Ukraine, Russia's Defense Ministry said.
Calling it an accident, the Defense Ministry said the pilot had been performing a training flight of the SU-34 aircraft when the engine ignited during takeoff.
“They were poisoned by combustion products," the deputy governor of the Krasnodar territory, Anna Minkova, said on her Telegram channel.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine and its Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
There was a large fire at a Russian military enlistment office in June, according to a report from Komsomolskaya Pravda, a Russian tabloid.