Conflict Intelligence Team: a house in Belgorod was probably destroyed by Russian ammunition

CIT (Conflict Intelligence Team*) considers it unlikely that the entrance to a multi-storey building in Belgorod was destroyed by a fragment of a downed Ukrainian missile. Most likely, it was hit by a Russian air defense missile or an aerial bomb, analysts say.

The investigation team believes that the version of the Russian Ministry of Defense that entrance to a high-rise building in Belgorod On May 12, he destroyed a fragment of a downed Ukrainian Tochka-U missile, unlikely. It is more likely that it was Russian ammunition, stated founder of CIT Ruslan Leviev May 13.

After analyzing photo and video materials from Belgorod, analysts came to the conclusion that it was highly likely that the house was hit from the northeast, writes Deutsche Welle. According to Leviev, this direction of the attack is indicated, among other things, by the fact that the windows in the building were broken out on the northeastern side and remained intact on the opposite side, facing Ukraine. He emphasizes:

“The version that a missile from the Ukrainian Tochka-U could change its trajectory under the influence of an air defense missile in such a way as to strike from this side of the house seems unlikely to us. Taking into account the direction of arrival, one of the most obvious versions is that it was hit by an anti-aircraft guided missile , for example, from the S-300 complex. Characteristic traces of fragmentation may not be visible due to the scale of the collapse. We assume that the warhead of such a missile may be sufficient to collapse the entrance.”

According to the founder of CIT, another “pretty obvious version” is abnormal gathering FAB-250 or FAB-500 aerial bomb from the universal correction and planning module (UMPC):

“This version is supported by the fact that shortly before the explosion it was reported that gliding bombs were launched in the Kharkov region. It is not yet possible to establish for sure what kind of ammunition hit the house, but most likely this happened due to the actions of the Russian side.”

Employees of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations on Monday, May 13 search and rescue operations completed at the site of a collapsed entrance in Belgorod. Rescuers pulled 32 people out from under the concrete rubble – 17 of them were saved, 15 died, the department said in a statement.

The Russian Ministry of Defense issued a message according to which the Ukrainian side shelled Belgorod using the Tochka-U missile system, Vilkha and RM-70 Vampire multiple launch rocket systems. According to the Russian military department, fragments of one of the downed Tochka-U missiles damaged a residential building. At the same time, Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that the entrance to a residential building collapsed “as a result of a direct hit from a shell.”

*Conflict Intelligence Team is an independent analytical group engaged in open-source investigations into the circumstances of armed conflicts.

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