Russian Air Force accidentally bombs Belgorod, its own city

Russia acknowledged that the explosion in the city of Belgorod was caused by a weapon accidentally dropped by one of its own Su-34 bombers, and not by the Ukraine military

When a powerful blast shook a Russian city near the border of Ukraine residents thought it was an 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 about 40 km east of the border, has faced regular drone attacks that Russian authorities blame on the Ukrainian military, but 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 threw a car on a store roof. It left a 20m-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 hospitalised 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 a powerful retribution.

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 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) bomb.

In Thursday's blast, the weapon was apparently set to explode with a small delay after impact, to hit underground facilities.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that 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 irreparable structural damage.