I'm a couple of days late to discuss this story, but that's OK. When you shoot from the hip right after an event, you tend to get a lot of things wrong. I'll probably end up doing a couple of edits or updates anyway.
Below is video of the unfolding event - maybe taken from a building in Severodvinsk. Clearly something unusual happened. Sound travels one mile in about 5 seconds. The video says there is a 30 second delay between the explosion and the sound wave (although I counted about 15 seconds), so this event was roughly 6 (or 3) miles away from the person recording the video.
Below is the part of the world we are interested in. I took screenshots of a few Google Earth images, because I'm not at all familiar with the place we are discussing today. Click to enlarge any image.
Below, Europe and Western Russia, with a few major cities marked for reference. Severodvinsk is the red marker top and center.
Below, a little closer in, showing a couple of cities that non world-traveler types might recognize.
Below Left: Nyonoska - near where the explosion is reported to have happened, and the nearby city of Severodvinsk at the right.
Severodvinsk undoubtedly has the nuclear infrastructure to manufacture a reactor. I've placed pins on all the nuclear ships that were in port when this Google Earth image was taken.
With the geography lesson out of the way, let's now discuss the event and the reporting of it.
Based on some sketchy initial reports from the usual scumbags, we learn that there was an explosion during a liquid-fueled rocket engine test. As of today (August 10, 2019), five workers were killed and three others were injured.
A spokeswoman for the nearby city of Severodvinsk made a statement to the press that there had been a spike in radioactivity. This last statement has been made to disappear from the internet with the exception of western news outlets that reported it. For unknown reasons, western press scumbags interviewed some other scumbag (a Russian Nuclear Agency PR Hack), who said that no radiation was released.
Later, some other scumbag said that Rosatom (Russia's state nuclear corporation) was providing "engineering and technical support for the isotope power source of a missile". They also noted that radioactivity levels were "back" to normal. Really these guys should all get on the same page with their stories. So no radioactive release, but radiation levels have returned to normal. Funny, that...
Every single time!!! These guys blatantly lie to you about very serious problems. Later on they also lie to minimize the extent of the problems. Also it doesn't matter if it's in the US, Russia, or Japan. They. Lie. Every. Goddam. Time. Get a radiation detector, folks. Do it for your peace of mind, and do it for the safety of your family. No government is going to tell you the truth.
In their apprehension, the justifiably frightened residents of Severodvinsk have made a run on iodine tablets. The scumbags in the press say that they are "doing this to protect themselves from radiation". And this, my friends, is why humanities majors should not be allowed to publish anything except poetry.
Iodine tablets are taken to shut down your thyroid's intake of iodine. Period.
Nuclear fission creates *radioactive* iodine. A release of that radioactive iodine is very hazardous to your thyroid. But taking Iodine tablets will not "protect you from radiation". Taking Iodine tablets will shut down your thyroid, and thus prevent the thyroid from uptake and bio-concentration of *radioactive* iodine - which frequently causes thyroid tumors.
Back to current events. Rosatom spokesman said that the force of the explosion blew several of their staff off a testing platform and into the sea. An area of Dvina bay in the White Sea has been shut down to shipping for a month.
An area near Nyonoska is used for testing missiles and weapon systems. It is then very likely that a missile test went awry. Missile propellants are not radioactive though... Also, nobody in their right mind would perform an engine test with a nuclear warhead attached to the rocket motor. There has to be another explanation for the source of radioactive particles. We have a mystery!
Below: Close up of the coastal area north of Nyonoska, where the reported floating missile test platform might have been located. Note: Google Earth is not real-time. The platform was likely towed there from the nearby Rosatom nuclear facilities at Severodvinsk just prior to the test.
My best guess based on all this low-value reporting and the contradictory statements is that someone was testing a nuclear rocket motor offshore of Nyonoska, and the test went really, really, bad. That would also explain the report that radiation levels spiked but settled back down again. A reactor with fresh fuel hasn't built up much waste, and most of that radioactivity will be short-lived. If they were test firing a nuclear-powered rocket, it would certainly use fresh fuel. Otherwise personnel couldn't approach it to connect test equipment.
If someone nearby had a gamma-ray spectroscopy rig and was willing to share results, then we would know what nuclides we are dealing with and could make a more educated guess. For now I'm going with "nuclear-powered rocket test motor explosion".
EDIT 1:
Ah here we go!!! A legit and informative news article that discusses this event in a little more detail. It seems that I was correct with most of my guesswork, given the crappy reporting and outright lies from officials.
It's notable that the five technicians who were killed in the blast were all buried in a closed town where nuclear weapons are manufactured. I would assume their bodies were badly contaminated and required burial with special containment.
EDIT 2 - 15 August 2019:
I just located a small Wikipedia article here on the 9M730 Burevestnik Буревестник, also known under the NATO designation as SSC-X-9 Skyfall. This might have been the engine test missile mentioned in the linked EDIT 1 that was undergoing an engine test.
EDIT 3 - 2 July 2020:
There is now a really good Wikipedia article regarding this event, with some excellent source material. There is now a satellite image of the test site just prior to the accident, shown below:
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