The Russian Air Force accidentally bombed its own city | World news
When a big explosion rocked a Russian city near the border of Ukraine people thought it was an attack on Ukraine.
But the Russian military quickly admitted that a bomb had been accidentally dropped by one of its own planes.
Belgorod, a city of 340,000 about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the border, has faced regular drone attacks that Russian authorities blame on the Ukrainian army, but the explosion late Thursday was far more powerful than anything its inhabitants have already heard.
Witnesses reported a low noise followed by an explosion that shook nearby apartment buildings and tossed a car onto the roof of a store.
It left a 20-meter (66-foot)-wide crater in the middle of a tree-lined boulevard flanked by apartment buildings, shattering their windows, damaging several cars and injuring two residents
A third was later hospitalized with hypertension.
Immediately after the explosion, Russian commentators and military bloggers were filled with theories about what Ukrainian weapon was used for the attack.
Many called for a strong reward.
But about an hour later, the Russian Defense Ministry admitted that the explosion was caused by a missile accidentally dropped by one of its own Su-34 bombers.
He gave no further details, but military experts said the weapon was likely a 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) bomb.
In Wednesday’s explosion, the weapon was apparently set to explode with a small delay after impact, to hit underground facilities.
Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said local authorities decided to temporarily relocate residents of a nine-room apartment building near the blast while it was checked to make sure it had not suffered irreparable structural damage.
The explosion in Belgorod followed the crash of a Russian plane next to a residential building in the port city of Yeysk on the Sea of Azov that killed 15 people.
Yeysk hosts Russia’s largest air base with planes flying missions over Ukraine.
Military experts have noted that as the number of Russian military aircraft has increased significantly during the conflict, so have accidents and accidents.
