Fire engulfed pretty much all 145-meters of the 40-story “Olympus Tower” skyscraper in Grozny, in the Russian republic of Chechnya.  No one was injured, but it’s not everyday you can see a skyscraper burn so thoroughly.  Links-a-plenty in this story:

Thick, black smoke rose from the fire over the city of Grozny (and through the night), which has been having something of a building boom under Chechen Republic's leader Ramzan Kadyrov. 

Russia's Emergency Services Ministry said the fire had mostly burned insulation that encased the unfinished and uninhabited building, part of a complex of seven towers that includes a luxury hotel, an office tower and high priced condominium residences.  The Olympus Tower was Russia’s tallest building outside Moscow.

The cause of the fire has not been determined.  Kadyrov had recently appeared in an article for Izvestia News calling for a foreign travel ban on senior and former Russian officials who had access to state secrets.  He’s also accused of human rights abuses, and the only Russian official named in the American Magnitsky Law intended to deny entry to the United States by Russian officials suspected of involvement in human rights abuses.

French tax exile Gerard Depardieu has a residence in the complex, but not in the tower that burned.