War games error: Russian helicopter showers rockets on crowd

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - In what the Russian military has dismissed as a “purposeful provocation,” the country’s media reported on Tuesday that a helicopter mistakenly fired a rocket at a crowd.

The report appeared on the state-owned NTV television station said that three people were injured at the major Russian military exercises after a helicopter accidentally fired a salvo of rockets at a crowd of invited spectators.

The report described the incident as part of an official report with details of the incident that took place on Saturday involving an attack helicopter. 

It said that the spectators were not seriously injured, and two cars were also damaged as the rockets hit a group of parked vehicles.

No other details were provided on the civilians purported to be injured.

This year, journalists, veterans’ groups and other invited guests have been allowed to watch portions of the Russian war games.

Another report appeared on the news site 66.ru that claimed two spectators had been hospitalized with serious injuries.

The report said it was an inadvertent strike by a state-of-the-art Ka-52 helicopter.

Both the reports carried a video that purportedly showed the incident, which they said happened at an exercise at a firing range near St. Petersburg during the Zapad-2017 war games.

Later on Tuesday, another Russian site, RBC.ru, cited a source as saying that Saturday’s accident left three people injured and that none of them were civilians.

Responding to the reports, the Russian military said they were a “purposeful provocation or someone’s personal stupidity.” 

In an official statement, it said that a helicopter had accidentally fired a rocket at an empty truck during a training exercise and that no one had been hurt. 

Russia’s ‘Zapad 2017’ war games were inspected by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and observers from Germany, Italy, Croatia, and Norway, all NATO countries were also reportedly present to view the exercises on the day. 

While NATO leaders have said that Russia is not being completely transparent about the war games, which they claim may actually involve up to 100,000 troops - Russia has maintained that these are routine military exercises and involve no more than 12,700 troops as per an international agreement.

The Zapad exercises have featured Russian and Belarusan military units simulating the response to an attack by an imaginary “Western Coalition.” 

The exercises began on Thursday.