Posted on 09/19/2017 11:12:16 AM PDT by BenLurkin
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 off last 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.”
(Excerpt) Read more at themoscowtimes.com ...
Oh goody more unnamed sources from dicey sites
Watch the video.
Here’s a direct link: https://youtu.be/O-3gguzL6xo
Russians expect to take casualties in training exercises but not sure they want them to be high ranking civilians.
There are no “bystanders” at live fire war game exercises.
They don’t sell tickets?
According to NATO they’re launching an invasion...ymmv!
I don't see a problem here...
The Russians put on a show though it was probably not the show they had scripted.
Based on the video, the pilot miscued.
Lousy planning to overfly observers on a live-fire range.
Negligent, actually.
Were there any American "journalists" in attendance? I'm not getting my hopes up here.
Hmm...be a shame if they scheduled a Rods From God test during the White House Correspondents Dinner, wouldn't it. I'll drop an email to Mad Dog...
*grins*
Pickle off three missiles = “miscue”???? One = mistake; two = mere coincidence; three = NFW!!
My take is the poorly-planned firing range demonstration had the choppers overfly the observers and the one pilot targeted the vehicle hit rather than the actual target. You see the actual target at the beginning of the video until the cameraman pivots to shoot [sic] the incoming choppers...
Yep.
Two direct rocket hits on the journalist bunker, but only two casualties? Even the Russians have low bidders.
If they have range safeties, it’s deep-shitski for him. But I bet they end up faulting the pilot for shitty planning.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.