Smoke was gushing from third floor windows in a defence ministry building at 19 Znamenka Street, Moscow
The blaze broke out as Vladimir Putin was holding talks with the Belarusian despot Alexander Lukashenko.
Comment: Lukashenko is the President of Belarus who, just a few years ago the West was courting for partnership, until Lukashenko turned down the Covid bribes to lockdown his country and then signaled his alliance with Russia.
Dark smoke was seen gushing from the third-floor windows in the defence ministry headquarters at 19 Znamenka Street. Footage shared by state media outlets on social media showed a plume of spiraling smoke. Around 50 people were evacuated as flames ripped through the headquarters.
Emergency services arrived and the small blaze was put out shortly after it started. There were no casualties, the Russian TASS news agency reported.
'The fire department and ministry of emergency situations came to the scene,' the statement added.
The fire covered an area of 60 square metres (646 square feet), TASS cited local emergency services as saying.
The Russian emergencies ministry said: 'Intense burning is observed from a window on the third floor.'
The defence ministry said it was currently establishing the cause of the inferno.
A major fire erupted at the Russian defence ministry building in the centre of Moscow. Emergency services responded on Wednesday night
The blaze came as Russian President Vladimir Putin was holding talks with Belarus despot Alexander Lukashenko today
Some reports said the section on fire was a department of military property dealing with facilities across the country.
Comment: This building belongs to the Ministry of Defence, it's not clear exactly what it's currently being used for. Notably, and unsurprisingly, the Western media are gleefully reporting the building as being the MoD building.
Putin was holding talks with Lukashenko - an ally in his war with Ukraine - in the Kremlin, where smoke was visible.
The ministry is headed by close Putin ally Sergei Shoigu, and is responsible for Putin's war in Ukraine.
Russia has seen a spate of fires in recent months.
Ukrainian intelligence chief, Major-General Kyrylo Budanov told Forbes last month that Russia was seeing many unusual explosions and fires.
'Much of this is no accident,' he said, admitting that Ukraine was paying Russian saboteurs. Something is constantly on fire [in Russia].
Comment: Indeed. However, Ukraine might be paying the saboteurs, with Western taxpayers money, but it's also likely that this is partly being achieved thanks to Western direction and intel. Despite the Major-General's bragging, these terrorist attacks haven't achieved much - except perhaps galvanise Russian citizens in their support of the leadership and its goals in Ukraine - and Ukraine continues to lose the West's proxy war: Airbase attacks deep inside Russia point to CIA covert ops and a planned war
'Signalling equipment on railways, it lights up several times a day, on various highways constantly for two to three hours, sometimes for five to six hours, traffic gets suspended.'
He admitted Kyiv is behind some of the sabotage attacks.
'Clearly it doesn't just happen like this.... I would put it this way: money works wonders.'
Why are the "wonders" never for the good of humanity?