A military plane crashed in a residential area in the southern Russian city of Yeysk, killing at least four people and injuring 25.
An apartment block was set on fire and emergency services were called. A nearby school was evacuated, the report said.
Russia's defense ministry said the Su-34 fighter-bomber was on a training flight on Monday evening when one of its engines caught fire.
The ministry said the pilots aboard the plane had ejected before the crash.
Footage has clearly emerged showing local residents trying to help a pilot lying on the ground nearby, with a parachute behind it.
"According to a report from the pilots who disembarked, the cause of the accident was an engine fire during flight," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
"At the point the Su-34 came down, in the courtyard of a residential block, the aircraft's fuel supply caught fire."
In a telegram post (in Russian), the governor of the Krasnodar Territory, of which Yeysk is part, said that he was on his way to the city and that all regional and local fire services were battling the fire.
Local media reported that the fire spread to five floors of the multi-storey building.
Footage shared on social media shows flames rising from a nearby apartment block
A local correspondent in Yeysk told Russia's state TV channel Rossiya 24 that the fire broke out in two blocks of the building.
According to Russia's Vesti.ru website, students from a nearby secondary school were successfully evacuated.
The Kremlin has ordered national and regional authorities to provide "all necessary assistance" to the victims of the fire at Yeisk's center, and senior government officials have been sent to coordinate a crisis response centre.
Russia's investigative committee said it had opened a criminal case and sent investigators to the crash site without assigning any reason.
Yeysk sits opposite Russian-occupied territory in southern Ukraine, separated by the Azov Sea.
The city has been used as a major training ground for Russian naval aviation.
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