Moscow has admitted that a bomb accidentally dropped by one of its fighter jets caused a large explosion in Belgorod, a Russian city close to the Ukraine border, terrifying residents and leaving three in hospital.
The mishap, involving a Russian Sukhoi-34 supersonic warplane, shook and damaged several buildings and threw a car on to a shop roof.
The bomb left a 66ft-wide crater in the middle of a tree-lined boulevard flanked by apartment buildings, shattering their windows.
Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov declared a state of emergency and said three people have been injured, including two women. “Thank God there are no dead,” he said in a statement on Telegram.
"As a Sukhoi Su-34 air force plane was flying over the city of Belgorod there was an accidental discharge of aviation ammunition," Tass cited the Russian defence ministry as saying, without providing further details of the kind of weapon that was fired.
A probe has been opened into the incident, the ministry said.
Just 24 miles from the Ukraine border, Belgorod has previously come under attack from Ukrainian drones since the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion.
The explosion in Belgorod followed the crash of a Russian warplane next to a residential building in the port city of Yeysk on the Sea of Azov that killed 15 people.
Yeysk hosts a big Russian airbase with warplanes flying missions over Ukraine.
