Russian warplane accidentally bombs own city, injures 3
A Russian fighter jet accidentally bombed the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine, causing a massive blast that injured three people and lifted a car onto the roof of a store.
The incident involving a Sukhoi-34 supersonic plane took place late Thursday, causing an explosion and leaving a huge crater near the center of Belgorod, located just 25 miles from the Ukrainian border.
Video from the scene showed piles of detritus littering the street, multiple mangled cars and a building with shattered windows.
The footage also showed a car resting upside down on the roof of a supermarket along a major thoroughfare called Prospekt Vatutina.
Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced a state of emergency overnight and confirmed that there was a crater measuring 65 feet across on one of the city’s main streets.
Three residents had been injured in the blast, and four cars and four apartment buildings sustained damage, he added.
“Thank God there are no dead,” Gladkov said in a statement on Telegram.
Two female victims were hospitalized with injuries caused by the explosion, and a third person later sought medical attention for hypertension.
The governor said a nine-story apartment building was evacuated as a precaution.
The state news agency TASS cited the Russian Defense Ministry as admitting that the Su-34 supersonic fighter-bomber had accidentally discharged an unspecified munition.
“As a Sukhoi Su-34 air force plane was flying over the city of Belgorod there was an accidental discharge of aviation ammunition,” TASS quoted the ministry as saying.
The ministry did not comment on the type of ordnance used, but military experts said it was likely a powerful 1,100-pound bomb.
The munition appeared to have been set to explode with a delay of about 18 seconds after impact, which would allow it to hit underground facilities in enemy territory.
An investigation into the inadvertent bombing was already underway, according to TASS.
To add insult to injury, an anchor on Russian state television followed the news about the accidental bombing of Belgorod by reading off a teleprompter that “modern weapons allow Russian units to eliminate extremists in the area of the special military operation from a minimal distance.”
The new presenter looked flummoxed by the text that he had just read live on air.
With Post wires
