Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor said that a Russian aerial bomb hit occupied Rubizhne, and due to numerous witnesses, the incident could not be concealed. Rubizhne is a city in Luhansk Oblast occupied by the Russian forces since 2022.
It is the Russian air force’s second incident of this kind in less than a week. Earlier, a Russian missile hit a village in Russia.
According to Lysohor, a FAB-250 bomb hit Rubizhne’s high-rise buildings which survived the Russian assaults in the spring of 2022. He does not mention the exact date of the accident, however, it is implied that it occurred today, 8 January.
The FAB-250 is a 250-kilogram air-dropped bomb with a high-explosive warhead.
“Usually, the occupiers refer to shelling by Ukrainian troops during such “extraordinary” events. This time, numerous witnesses interfered. They saw both the Russian fighter jet and the actual munition. It was impossible to hide it and attribute it to the enemy,” Lysohor wrote.
He says the injured were being hospitalized with those in serious condition being transported to a temporary accomodation center.
Leonid Pasechnik, Head of the Russian occupation government of Luhansk Oblast, confirmed that a Russian aircraft accidentally released a bomb that hit Rubizhne. However, he claimed that the strike of the FAB-250 bomb did not injure anyone.
Pasechnik claimed that emergence services were deciding whether to defuse the ammunition, implying that the bomb did not detonate.
Less than a week ago, on 2 January, a similar “abnormal release” occurred during a previous massive missile strike on Ukraine, as a Russian missile hit the Russian village of Petropavlovka, Voronezh Oblast, injuring four, according to official Russian claims.
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