Russian air force accidentally dropped a bomb on a Russian city

One of Russia’s warplanes, headed to Ukraine, accidentally dropped a bomb as it flew over the Russian city of Belgorod. People heard a hissing noise followed by the most powerful explosion that the city’s residents have heard during the current war. The Ukrainians had deployed drones to attack targets in this city, but the explosions were not as loud as this one. One of Belgorod’s avenues has a new feature consisting of a 66-foot-wide crater.

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Belgorod, a city of 340,000 located about 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 late Thursday 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 66-foot-wide crater in the middle of a tree-lined avenue flanked by apartment blocks, damaged several cars and threw one vehicle onto a store roof. Two people were injured, and a third person was later hospitalized with hypertension, authorities said.

Immediately after the explosion, Russian commentators and military bloggers were abuzz with theories about what weapon Ukraine had used for the attack. Many of them called for strong retribution.

But 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.

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Category: Russia, Ukraine