On September 18, Youtube user Alex HR published the video “Military exercise Zapad-2017: Two Kamov Ka-52 helicopters carry out missile strike”
The video features the helicopter opening fire on an object covered with camouflage net. There are three vehicles near the object. The author video was standing 10-15 meters from the scene.
Shortly after the publication of information about the incident by media outlets another video has appeared:
According to 66.ru, a Ka-50 ‘involuntarily’ fired at the crowd of viewers at the training ground Luzhski (Leningrad region) on September 17 (or 18). Interestingly, on September 18, Russian leader Vladimir Putin visited it to inspect the drills. The incident might have occured before his arrival.
“They [missiles] were flying in the direction of the target, they were only 500 meters away. According to the task, weapon chains were to be applied on the combat path, they turned them on, but there was some fault, and missiles went off unaided. The splinters have a big burst radius; at least two cars were burnt, two people were seriously injured, now they are in hospital. It was a drill before some kind of show-off. I guess that journalists were the casualties,” an anonymous source told 66.ru.
Russia’s Defense Ministry confirms the information about the incident, but refutes the report about the injured. The military officials also state that the situation took place not yesterday, but before Zapad-2017.
The joint Russian-Belarusian military drills kicked off on September, 14. According to the organizers, nearly 13,000 troops are involved in the war game as well as 40 aviation equipment pieces, 140 tanks, 150 mortars and multiple rocket launchers and 10 ships.
Zapad-2017 map:
belsat.eu
