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When a powerful explosion rocked a city near the Russian border Ukraine Residents believe it was a Ukrainian attack.
Russia bombed Belgorod on Thursday. (Associated Press)
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but russian army Quickly admitted that it was a bomb accidentally dropped by one of his fighter planes.
Belgorod, a city of 340,000 about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the border, has faced frequent drone attacks that Russian authorities blamed on the Ukrainian military, but reports late Thursday The explosion was far more powerful than anything local residents had heard before.
Witnesses reported a muffled hiss followed by an explosion that shook nearby apartment buildings and threw a car onto the roof of a store.
It left a 20-meter (66-foot)-wide crater in the middle of a tree-lined boulevard flanked by apartment buildings, smashing windows, damaging several cars and injuring two residents .
A third person was later hospitalized with high blood pressure.
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Immediately after the explosion, Russian commentators and military bloggers abounded with theories about what weapons Ukraine used to carry out the attack.
Many have called for strong retaliation.
But about an hour later, the Russian Ministry of Defense admitted that the explosion was caused by a weapon accidentally dropped by one of its own Su-34 bombers.
It did not provide any further details, but military experts said the weapon was likely a powerful 500kg (1,100lb) bomb.
In Thursday’s blast, the weapon was apparently poised to explode with a slight delay after impact to hit the underground facility.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said local authorities had decided to temporarily house residents of a nine-story apartment building near the blast while it was inspected to make sure it had not suffered damage beyond repair structural damage.
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The explosion in Belgorod came after a Russian warplane crashed next to a residential building in the Sea of Azov port city of Yeysk, killing 15 people.
Yesk hosts a large Russian air base, and warplanes fly over Ukraine.
Military experts pointed out that as the number of Russian military flights surged during the battle, crashes also increased.
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