Belgorod, located about 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of the Russia-Ukraine border, has faced regular drone attacks since Russia sent troops into Ukraine last year. File Photo.
Belgorod: A day after the Russian air force accidentally bombed one of its own cities, causing a powerful blast, more than seventeen apartment buildings were evacuated on Saturday in a Russian city near the Ukrainian border after an explosive device was found at the same site.
The blast which occurred late on Thursday rocked part of Belgorod, leaving a huge crater and three people injured. The Russian Defence Ministry quickly acknowledged that a weapon accidentally released by one of its own Su-34 bombers caused the explosion. The ministry also ordered an investigation but did not elaborate on the details of the weapon, which military experts said was possibly a powerful 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) bomb.
The governor of Belgorod province, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reported on Saturday that sappers examining the site of Thursday’s blast found and decided to detonate what he called an “explosive object” that was “in the immediate vicinity of residential buildings.”
The precautionary evacuations ended later in the day, according to Belgorod Mayor Valentin Demidov.
“The bomb was removed from the residential area. Residents are being delivered back to their homes,” Demidov wrote on Telegram.
Russian authorities did not say if the detonated device was dropped by accident on Thursday and if so, if it was a remnant of or separate from the bomb that exploded in the city.
Belgorod, located about 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of the Russia-Ukraine border, has faced regular drone attacks since Russia sent troops into Ukraine last year. Russian authorities have blamed those strikes on the Ukrainian military, which refrained from directly claiming responsibility for the attacks.
Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has sent relations with the West into deep freeze, with frequent expulsions of diplomats on both sides.
On Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that German authorities had “decided on another mass expulsion of employees of Russian diplomatic missions in Germany.”
A ministry statement said that “as a reaction to the hostile actions of Berlin,” Russia decided to “mirror” the expulsions by Germany and “significantly limit” the maximum number of staff at German diplomatic missions in Russia.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Russia is expelling more than 20 German diplomats, Russian state media reported, but didn’t give a precise number.
The German air force said earlier that a Russian plane flew to Berlin with diplomatic clearance on Saturday, but didn’t specify who or what was on board. Special clearance is required because the European Union closed its airspace to Russian aircraft shortly after the war in Ukraine started.
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