A Russian Sukhoi-34 fighter-jet has accidentally bombed the Russian city of Belgorod. Russia’s military acknowledged that a bomb accidentally dropped by one of its warplanes caused a powerful blast in the Russian city not far from Ukraine’s border, injuring two and scaring local residents.
Belgorod, a city of 340,000 located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the Russia-Ukraine border, has faced regular drone attacks during Russia’s current military operation in Ukraine. Russian authorities blamed the earlier strikes on the Ukrainian military, which refrained from directly claiming responsibility for the attacks.
The explosion was far more powerful than anything Belgorod residents had experienced before. Witnesses reported a low hissing sound followed by a blast that made nearby apartment buildings tremble and shattered their windows.
It left a 20-meter (66-foot) -wide crater in the middle of a tree-lined boulevard flanked by apartments, damaged several cars and threw one vehicle onto a store roof. According to authorities, two people were injured, and a third person was later hospitalized with hypertension.
Immediately after the explosion, Russian commentators and military bloggers were busy creating theories about what weapon Ukraine had used for the attack. Many of them called for strong retribution.
However, about an hour later, the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged that a weapon accidentally released by one of its own Su-34 bombers caused the blast. The ministry did not provide any further details, but military experts said the weapon likely was a powerful 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) bomb.
Military experts charged that the weapon appeared to have been set to explode with a small delay after impact that would allow it to hit underground facilities.
Local Authorities Order The Evacuation Of Affected Nine-storey Building
Belgorod Governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov said local authorities had ordered the evacuation of a nine-storey apartment building as a precaution. Authorities decided to temporarily resettle residents of the nine-storey apartment building while it was inspected to make sure it had not suffered structural damage that rendered it unsafe to live in.
Russian commentators questioned why the warplane flew over Belgorod and urged the military to avoid such risky overflights in the future.
Though embarrassing for the Russian military, the admission of “an accident” suggests that officials do not believe the incident will negatively impact Russian public opinion of what the Kremlin still calls its “special military operation”.
Maintenance workers have begun the work of repairing the busy intersection in Belgorod. Much of the work would take place at the weekend and the road would be resurfaced on Monday, April 24, 2023.
In times of war and conflict, accidents happen, sometimes with devastating consequences. In October, 2022, a Russian warplane crashed next to a residential building in the port city of Yeysk on the Sea of Azov, killing 15 people. Yeysk hosts a big Russian air base with warplanes that fly missions over Ukraine.
Military experts have noted that the number of Russian military flights have increased sharply during the fighting.
In another deadly incident in the Belgorod region, two volunteer soldiers fired at Russian troops at a military firing range, killing 11 and wounding 15 others before being shot dead.
The military disclosed that it has launched an investigation into the incident. Quoting a former military pilot, pro-government news site, Moskovsky Komsomolets suggested that “the conclusions [of the investigation] are unlikely to be made public, but lessons will be learned”.
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