Russian warplane accidentally bombs Russian city near border with Ukraine
MOSCOW — Russia’s military acknowledged that a bomb accidentally dropped by one of its warplanes caused a powerful blast in a Russian city not far from Ukraine’s border, injuring two and scaring local residents.
When a powerful blast shook a Russian city near the border of Ukraine, residents thought it was a Ukrainian attack. But the Russian military quickly acknowledged that it was a bomb accidentally dropped by one of its own warplanes.
Belgorod, a city of 340,000 people about 25 miles east of the border, has faced regular drone attacks during the 14-month-long war in Ukraine. Russian authorities blamed the earlier strikes on the Ukrainian military, which refrained from directly claiming responsibility for the attacks.
The explosion late Thursday was far more powerful than anything its residents had heard before. Witnesses reported a low hissing sound followed by a blast that made nearby apartment buildings tremble and shattered their windows.
It left a 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 person was later hospitalized with hypertension.
Immediately after the explosion, Russian commentators and military bloggers were abuzz with theories about what weapon Ukraine had used for the attack. Many called for strong retaliation.
Ukraine’s defense minister welcomes arrival of U.S.-made Patriot missiles that will protect civilians and infrastructure from Russian airstrikes.
But about an hour later, the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged that the explosion was caused by a weapon accidentally dropped by one of its own Su-34 bombers. It didn’t offer any further details, but military experts said the weapon likely was a powerful 1,100-pound bomb.
Military experts speculated that the weapon appeared to have been set to explode with a small delay after impact so as to hit underground facilities.
Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said local authorities decided to temporarily resettle residents of a nine-story apartment building near the blast while it was inspected to make sure it hadn’t suffered structural damage that rendered it unsafe.
In an editorial gaffe, an anchor on Russian state television followed the news about the local authorities dealing with the explosion’s aftermath by declaring that “modern weapons allow Russian units to eliminate extremists in the area of the special military operation from a minimal distance.” The anchor looked visibly puzzled by the text he had just read.
Ukraine’s top prosecutor described for U.S. lawmakers examples of war atrocities that he says are deliberately orchestrated by Russian forces.
Russian commentators questioned why the warplane flew over Belgorod and urged the military to avoid such risky overflights in the future.
Some alleged that the bomb dropped on Belgorod could be one of a batch of modified munitions equipped with wings and a GPS-guided targeting system that allows them to glide to targets dozens of miles away. The Russian air force has started using such gliding bombs only recently, and some experts say they could be prone to glitches.
In October, 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 flying missions over Ukraine.
Military experts have noted that, as the number of Russian military flights has increased sharply during the fighting, so have crashes and accidents.
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.
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