Russia drops powerful bomb on its own city instead of Ukraine

When a powerful explosion rocked a Russian town near the Ukrainian border, residents thought it was a Ukrainian attack. But the Russian military quickly admitted it was a bomb accidentally dropped by one of its own warplanes.

Belgorod, a city of 340,000 about 40 kilometers east of the border, has been facing regular drone attacks that Russian authorities blame on the Ukrainian military, but the latest explosions there are far more powerful than what residents have heard before.

Witnesses reported a low hissing sound followed by an explosion that shook a nearby apartment building and threw a car onto the roof of a shop. It left a 20-meter-wide crater in the middle of a tree-lined highway flanked by apartment buildings, shattering windows, damaging several cars and injuring two residents. A third person was later hospitalized for hypertension.

In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, Russian commentators and military bloggers were abuzz with theories about what weapons Ukraine had used in the attack. Many are calling for strong retribution.

But about an hour later, the Russian Defense Ministry admitted that the explosion was caused by a weapon accidentally dropped by one of its own Su-34 bombers. It did not provide further details, but military experts said the weapon was a powerful 500-kilogram bomb.

In the explosion there, the weapon was apparently set to explode with a small delay after impact, to hit underground facilities.

Some residents moved

Governor of Belgorod Vyacheslav Gladkov said that the local authorities decided to temporarily resettle residents of the nine-storey apartment building near the explosion while it has been checked to make sure that it has not suffered irreparable structural damage.

Russia attacked Ukraine last night with a Shahed drone that blew itself up, Ukraine’s military said on Friday. Russia launched about 10 drones at Ukrainian targets, and eight of them were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, the Ukrainian General Staff said.

At least six civilians have been killed and another six wounded in Ukraine over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian president’s office reported Friday morning.

According to Ukrainian officials, Russian missile attacks and ballistic missiles mostly target towns and villages in the partially controlled regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Outside the region, Russian forces also shelled Chernihiv province on Thursday from mortars. Overnight, Russia launched drones to attack Kyiv, as well as Poltava and Vinnytsia regions.

Russian and Ukrainian forces have been heavily involved in a stalemate, trading small pieces of land in winter. The fiercest fighting has been in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is struggling to encircle the city of Bakhmut in the face of Ukrainian defenses. Both sides are expected to launch intensified attacks in the spring.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Friday in its daily military assessment of the war that the ground and muddy conditions in much of Ukraine would slow operations for both sides in the conflict.

Meanwhile, the United States will begin training Ukrainian forces on how to use and maintain Abrams tanks in the coming weeks, as it continues to accelerate efforts to get them onto the battlefield quickly, US officials said on Friday.

The decision came as defense leaders from across Europe and the world met at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, in an ongoing effort to coordinate the delivery of weapons and other equipment to Ukraine. An announcement is expected later on.

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US President Joe Biden’s administration announced in January that it would send Abrams tanks to Ukraine – after insisting for months that they were too complex and difficult to maintain and repair. The decision was part of a broader political maneuver that opened the door for Germany to announce it would send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and allow Poland and other allies to do the same.