StroyPark Mall in Balashikha, to the east of Moscow, caught fire early Monday after the blaze began at a store selling construction supplies
StroyPark Mall in Balashikha, to the east of Moscow, was filmed in flames early Monday as thick black smoke streamed into the sky.
It comes after another fire at the Mega shopping centre in Khimki, also near Moscow and 30 miles from Balashikha, caused explosions which killed one person.
Monday's fire was reported to cover more than 230,000 sq ft.
One Telegram channel asked: 'Fires at Russian shopping centres seem to be breaking out really often these days. Are these sabotage...or?'
The Russian emergencies ministry has officially blamed Monday's blaze on building materials catching fire inside a construction supplies store.
Ministers did not say how the materials had caught light.
The fire was thought to have spread to 230,000 square feet by the time the sun came up over Moscow on Monday morning
Building material caught fire for unexplained reasons, according to the Russian emergencies' ministry.
Other recent fires have hit the Mikoyanovsky meat factory, in Moscow, and the Pushkin national art gallery in the centre of the Russian capital.
Comment: Discussion online highlighted that it was probably not the Pushkin art gallery that went up in flames, and was instead a historic building that did not contain any artworks.
Bne IntelliNews had already said the spate of Moscow fires was 'raising suspicions of arson attacks by Ukrainian saboteurs'.
The fires come as Vladimir Putin wages war in Ukraine, with Kyiv in recent days hitting back with drone attacks deep inside Russia.
There is, however, no suggestion these fires are the result of aerial attacks, but there is a suspicion that sabotage may be behind some of them.
Some observers have disputed the official version that the Khimki fire was the result of a welding accident.
They pointed to reports of a giant explosion, followed by the intense fire.
Comment: It might be the second shopping mall fire, but it's actually one of a variety of fires that have occurred in Russia in just the last few months that lead one to suspect that at least some of these could indeed be terror attacks occurring on Russian soil: