Gon and the training ground

The Ministry of Defense has created a special commission to investigate spontaneous launch of missiles from a helicopter at the Luzhsky training ground during the exercises of the West-2017. It is reported by Kommersant.

As the source of the publication, close to the headquarters of the aerospace forces, said the incident occurred on September 16. "On that day, at 14:00 Moscow time, the Ka-52 helicopter pair of Smakhtin, the Ka-52 helicopter pair of Smakhtin (the head of the senior lieutenant Volchkov) took off from the Pushkin airfield (Leningrad region) to fulfill the" test flight of the couple to perform fire tasks. "At 14:47, after receiving the permission of the training department of the training ground, when performing the third call at the combat course on the military year a height of 50 m and a speed of about 200 km/h when the main weapon switch turned on a spontaneous gathering of the S-8 Air-Earth C-8, the publication notes.

Three troops received slight injuries on the ground. Army van and armored car were damaged.

After the incident, the helicopters returned to the base. During the work of the commission, they are removed from flights, the publication reports.

In the TFR and the military prosecutor's office, they refuse official comments. However, in private, the publication was reported that the department has not yet been received by the incident. The Ministry of Defense and the Helicopters of Russia refused to comment.

The first information about the incident appeared on social networks on Tuesday. Video recording of missile shelling were published. Then, the incident was informed by the city news website of Yekaterinburg 66.ru. The informed source confirmed the fact of launching missiles. “It was a training in front of some kind of window dressing,” the source said.

In the Ministry of Defense, random shelling at the Luzhsky training ground is denied. "On September 18, as part of the drawing of the episode of the practical actions of the joint strategic doctrine" West -2017 "there were no incidents related to the work of army aviation," the Western Military District press service said on Tuesday. “All messages about volleys in the crowd of journalists, a large number of seriously wounded - deliberate provocation or someone's personal stupidity.”

A different case is recorded on the video, the military claims. Then the crews of helicopters in the framework of the flight tactical teaching worked out the exercise to defeat ground targets. "The system of guidance of one of the helicopters was committed erroneous to capture the target. As a result of an uncontrolled rocket, one of the trucks without people was damaged," the district said. However, when and where such an incident occurred, the message is not said.

On Monday, the Luzhsky training ground was visited by President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu.

The exercises "West-2017" began on September 14. These are the largest maneuvers in Russia near the borders of NATO members over the past four years. According to the Ministry of Defense, more than 12.7 thousand military are involved in them: about 7.2 thousand Russian and about 5.5 thousand Belarusian. Meanwhile, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linus Linkyavichyus called this data implausible, explaining that, according to him, at least 30 thousand Russian military were transferred to Belarus, as well as 4 thousand systems that could carry nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the Minister of Defense of Germany Ursula von der Leyen called the most Russian military, involved in the exercises, is 100 thousand people.

The head of the British Ministry of Defense, Michael Fallon, called the goal of Russian-Belarusian maneuvers to provoke the West and verify the defense of NATO countries, and President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko regarded the teachings as one of the stages of Moscow’s preparation for the “offensive war of a continental scale”. Linkyavichyus called on Moscow to cancel the teachings.