North Ossetia investigates shopping mall blast

Authorities have opened an investigation into an explosion at the Alania Mall shopping centre in North Ossetia’s capital, Vladikavkaz, on Wednesday morning.

According to the head of North Ossetia, Sergei Menyailo, one woman was killed after being thrown from a window by the blast.

She was later identified as 57-year-old Ida Chivaeva, a cleaner at the mall.

According to the North Ossetian Emergency Situations Ministry, following the blast, a fire broke out at the scene, covering an area of 800 square metres. It was extinguished within two hours, the Ministry stated.

‘We've been here since morning, and they won’t let us inside to get our goods. The firefighters have flooded everything with water. We want to save at least something; no one will compensate us for our losses’, Elina Dzgoeva, an owner at one of the shops in the mall, told OC Media.

Various sources, including official ones, reported that between two and thirteen people were injured. However, the North Ossetian Health Ministry later stated that there were no injuries and only one death.

Just minutes after the explosion, the Investigative Committee for North Ossetia reported that the incident was caused by a gas explosion. However, Menyailo did not confirm this information, stating that ‘various versions are being considered’.

Batraz Kodzaev, the chief engineer of Gazprom in Vladikavkaz, also ruled out a gas explosion, stating that the building was not gasified. However, he noted that a gas cylinder explosion could be a possible cause.

Shortly afterward, Menyailo stated that there was no reason to believe that a drone attack had caused the explosion, as ‘the explosion occurred inside the building’. He added that investigators were searching for traces of an ‘explosive device’, noting that ‘no one is trying to hide anything’.

However, Menyailo wrote on his Telegram channel later on Wednesday that a downed drone had caused the explosion and fire, contradicting his earlier statements.

‘According to the Ministry of Defence, the explosion and fire at the Vladikavkaz shopping centre were caused by falling debris from a downed UAV. The fixed-wing drone was shot down by air defence systems today at 8:28. Preliminary results of the investigative and operational measures confirm this version. Surveillance cameras at the shopping centre show that the explosion occurred from the outside. Explosive experts are searching for fragments of the unmanned aerial vehicle’, Menyailo wrote.

Further drone attacks in Ingushetia and Chechnya

That same morning, drone attacks were carried out on two neighboring regions in the North Caucasus — Ingushetia and Chechnya.

The head of Ingushetia, Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov, later confirmed the attack, stating that the drone fell in the territory of Malgobek. According to him, there were no casualties or damage. This was the first drone attack on the republic.

In Chechnya, local residents reported that they heard explosions near the 2nd police regiment in Grozny. Khamzat Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Security Council and nephew of Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov, confirmed the attack and published a video showing one of the UAVs being shot down.

‘Information that drones hit any object is false, everything was shot down!’ Khamzat Kadyrov wrote on Instagram.

Ramzan Kadyrov did not comment on the attack, which was the fifth since October of this year.

The NIYSO Telegram channel published photos and videos from other sites in Chechnya where drones allegedly fell on Wednesday, including in the villages of Katayama and Goyty and in the Shalinsky district.

The Russian Ministry of Defence did not mention the North Caucasus regions in its daily report on repelled drone attacks.