At least three people were injured when a jet fired weapons at the city of Belgorod, Russian state media reported.
Late Thursday, a Russian Sukhoi-34 supersonic fighter jet mistakenly fired its weapons into the city of Belgorod near Ukraine, causing an explosion and injuring three people.
Video footage from the scene showed piles of concrete in the street, several damaged cars and a building with broken windows. One of the photos showed what appeared to be a car upside down on the roof of a store.
Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov declared a state of emergency overnight and said there was a 20-meter (65-foot) wide crater on one of the main streets. He added that four cars and four apartment buildings were damaged.
Three people were injured, he said.
“Thank God, no one died,” Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a statement on Telegram, adding that an apartment building had been evacuated overnight.
Russia’s TASS news agency quoted the Russian Ministry of Defense as saying that a Su-34 supersonic fighter-bomber accidentally fired the ammunition.
“When a Sukhoi Su-34 Air Force aircraft was flying over the city of Belgorod, an accidental discharge of aviation ammunition occurred,” TASS quoted the Ministry of Defense as saying.
It did not say which weapon was involved.
The ministry said some buildings had been damaged and announced that an investigation was already underway, TASS news agency reported.
The Belgorod region is one of several regions in southern Russia where targets such as fuel and ammunition depots have been affected by explosions since Moscow began its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
