A multi-million-pound military drone has crashed into power lines in the Belgorod region of Russia, close to the border with Ukraine. Ukrainians immediately used the dramatic footage of the incident to joke that Vladimir Putin was now targeting his own country’s energy infrastructure. This comes after President Putin carried out an intense bombardment of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure throughout December.
Footage from the crash saw a drone armed with a KAB-20 bomb collide with power lines near the village of Severny, in Belgorod.
Videos from cars near the scene show a huge explosion and sparks flying after the impact.
Later footage showed fire blazing near the power lines, along with photographs of the crashed drone and the guided rocket on the ground.
Russian Telegram users claimed that the crash was “due to malfunction or pilot error”.
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The armed reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), called the Forpost-RU, was understood to be on its way into Ukraine at the moment of impact.
The Forpost-RU is a $6 million (£4.9million) Israeli-designed UAV produced in Russia.
Many Ukrainians took the chance to ridicule the failed drone attack.
@Kaos_Vs_Control tweeted: “Russia has begun attacks on power infrastructure again…hits own city’s power supply.”
Igor Sushko tweeted: “Russian military drone carrying two KAB-20S 21kg satellite-guided bombs was taken out by anti-fascist powerline cables in #Belgorod, region in Russia that borders #Ukraine.”
Mr Manturov is also his trade and industry minister and is responsible for overseeing Russia’s weapons and defence industry and supplies of equipment for troops.
President Putin criticised him for working too slowly on the country’s aircraft contracts.
During the humiliating tirade, Mr Manturov bowed his head as he came under immense pressure from the Russian President.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin chief has removed Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon”, from his role as head of Russia’s war in Ukraine three months after he took on the job.
Head of the Russian military Valery Gerasimov has replaced him.
