Local Telegram channels have accused the Russian military of bombing its own city. This comes after a huge “explosion” ripped through the Russian border city of Belgorod on Saturday. The blast left five people injured, including three women and two men, as several Russians took to Telegram to claim it was a misguided Russian aerial bomb
The explosions were reported at around 3pm local time, with several videos posted on Telegram showing blazing fires at the explosion sites. More than 30 houses and 10 cars were damaged in the devastating blast.
Ukrainians claimed that the timing of the explosions suggested that it was part of the missiles intended to strike the nearby Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which faced a barrage of strikes at the same time yesterday.
The strikes in Kharkiv caused a large fire at an industrial enterprise, injuring six workers.
Russia has recently intensified its attacks on the Kharkiv region, whose capital lies just 30 kilometers from the Russian border.
Former Ukrainian official Anton Gerashchenko claimed the errant missile strike was “bound to happen at some point”.
The governor of Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that “an explosion rang out” in Belgorod but refused to specify its cause. He said it was “miraculous” that nobody had died in the incident.
The Russian Telegram channel RusNews said there was “an emergency discharge of ammunition in the Razdobarkina Street area of Belgorod but no official comments have been made”.
The Telegram channels Pepel and BelPlus claimed that photos from the explosion site showed several houses had suffered severe damage uncharacteristic of a drone explosion and instead blamed a Russian bomb blast.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian Su-25 fighter-bomber jet over the Donetsk region yesterday, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
He praised the 110th separate mechanised brigade “for today taking down another Russian Su-25 in the Donetsk region”.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has claimed that Russia is losing almost 900 soldiers a day in its fight in Ukraine.
Just under 900 soldiers are either killed or wounded everyday, as the MoD predicted that “Russia‘s casualty rate will again increase over the next two months as they renew dedicated offensive operations in easter Ukraine“.