Sukhoi-34 fighter jet
Heavy explosion in Belgorod: Russian fighter jet accidentally hits Russian border town
This picture, posted on the official Telegram account by Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, shows the damage after an explosion in the city
© Telegram Vyacheslav Gladkov / AFP
A massive explosion caused a crater in the streets of the Russian border town of Belgorod by a Russian fighter jet. In Moscow there was talk of an “abnormal disposal of Luftwaffe ammunition”. Two people were injured.
The Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border was rocked by a massive explosion on Thursday evening. According to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, a Russian Air Force Sukhoi-34 fighter jet lost ammunition while flying over Belgorod. “An abnormal discharge of Luftwaffe ammunition has occurred,” it said. Since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine in February 2022, Russian military planes have regularly flown over Belgorod.
“A huge crater with a radius of 20 meters has formed at the intersection of one of the main roads,” said the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, on Thursday evening with. Two women were injured. The Defense Ministry in Moscow later admitted that a Russian warplane dropped a bomb over the city. One of the women was taken to the hospital for a head injury and the other was treated at the scene.
Damaged homes and cars in Belgorod, downed power poles
According to him, the shock wave triggered by the detonation damaged four apartments and four cars and caused nine power poles to fall. Gladkow and Mayor Valentin Demidow published pictures of the damage. Among other things, the interior of devastated apartments could be seen on it. In the surrounding blocks of flats, windows were broken by the explosion, it said. According to Gladkow, residents were accommodated at the hotel for the night. It will be checked whether load-bearing walls in the buildings have been damaged.
Since the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, the city of Belgorod has come under repeated shelling. In January, Governor Gladkow announced that a total of 25 people had been killed and more than 90 others injured in the region of the same name since February 2022.
In October, a Russian Sukhoi-34 plane crashed into a residential complex in the city of Yeysk on the Azov Sea near Ukraine. 16 people died, including several children.