A large blast rocked a street in the Russian city of Belgorod, which lies just across the border from Ukraine, late on Thursday but there were no initial reports of injuries, local authorities said.
The defence ministry in Moscow says a Russian fighter jet accidentally bombed the city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine. Regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the blast had left a huge crater about 20 metres (60 ft) wide in the city centre.
Two women were injured and several buildings were damaged, he said. A Su-34 fighter-bomber jet accidentally discharged aircraft ordnance, the ministry said.
The incident took place at 22:15 local time (19:15 GMT) on Thursday, Russian news agencies said. An investigation is under way.
Read | India and China snap up Russian oil in April above ‘price cap’
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the region of Belgorod, said the blast had sent a shock wave that damaged four apartments and four cars and downed power line poles. “An explosion took place,” Gladkov said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that investigators and representatives of the emergencies ministry were at the scene.
Belgorod – a city of 370,000 – is around 25 miles (40 km) from the Ukrainian border. It lies just north of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, and people there have been living in fear of Ukrainian shelling since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year. Russian jets have regularly flown sorties over Belgorod since the start of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine in February 2022.
To read and know more news, now you can also follow us on social media – To follow on Twitter, type – @khas_khabar and to read news #khas_khabar live follow on Facebook. You can follow us on our page@socialkhabarlive