themoscowtimes.com
Sep 19, 2017 — 11:47
— Update: 15:18
Two people were hospitalized with serious injuries after
a helicopter accidentally fired on bystanders at the Zapad 2017
military exercises, the online news portal 66.ru cited a source
as saying on Tuesday.
The week-long drills in Western Russia and
neighboring Belarus kicked
offlast week, with around 13,000 troops, hundreds of tanks, aircraft,
warships and other military hardware participating.
The incident reportedly took place at the Luzhsky
range near St. Petersburg either on Monday or Sunday. President
Vladimir Putin visited
the range on Monday.
The unnamed source told 66.ru that there appeared
to have been a technical glitch on board “and the missiles
blasted off on their own.”
“At least two cars burned down, two people were
seriously injured, they are now hospitalized,” the source said. “The victims
were most likely journalists.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said two attack
helicopters simulated aerial
reconnaissance and close air support missions on Monday as part
of Zapad 2017.
Video footage accompanying the news report appears to
show one of the helicopters misfiring in the direction of camera
crews.
The Defense Ministry’s press service denied that the
incident took place on Monday, saying “all social media messages about ‘rounds
on a crowd of journalists,’ ‘a large number of seriously wounded’ are either a
deliberate provocation or someone’s personal stupidity.”
“[Video footage] recorded an event that occurred at
another time, when army aviation helicopter crews practiced ground attacks
as part of a tactical exercise.”
The press service said one of the helicopters engaged a
wrong target, adding that one truck was damaged and no people were hurt from a
self-propelled rocket hit.
Ka-52 Alligator: Details
No comments:
Post a Comment