Russia-Ukraine Flash Report 20 APR 2023 14:30 PDT - Russian VKS Bombs Belgorod By Accident

Consider some of this a hot take, so first, the truth, because the truth matters.

A massive explosion rocketed the Russian city of Belgorod, carving a huge crater near the city center that miraculously landed in the middle of a wide avenue. There was no air raid alert at the time of the incident, and air defense in the Belgorod area was not active.

Shockingly, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that a FAB-500S-E GLONASS-guided glide bomb has an anomaly and crashed into Belgorod. No deaths have been reported, and it is unclear if there are injuries. We will likely not hear about any minor to moderate causalities from flying debris and glass. We know from the many incidents in Ukraine that these create a significant concussion, and exploding in the middle of an urban environment has likely broken a lot of windows with violent force.

Hot takes.

Two thoughts. This might partially explain the more than statistically significant number of Russian glide bombs that are landing in empty fields. The failure rates appear to be more than 1 or 2 percent. Ukrainian officials in Kherson earlier in the month said the bombs landing in open fields was an attempt to disrupt planting season, which we had assessed was very unlikely. The reason we dismissed that claim is there is almost no planting season in free Kherson, which is only 10% demined.

Second thought. This highlights the lack of discipline, planning, and professionalism within the Russian military. The FAB-500S-E bombs can be delivered by Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft that can stand off as far as 70 kilometers from their target. That means that the Russian VKS has a near-infinite number of points where they can launch the bomb for its glide path. You would think that Russian military planners and commanders would account for avoiding their own, populated areas for this very reason.

The fact the bomb landed in the street and not on a building likely made it extremely difficult to create a narrative that this was a Ukrainian strike. If any bits of the Russian glide system were found at the site, given this is unique to the VKS arsenal, it would become undeniable. Additionally, the Russian civilian population on the Ukrainian border is growing increasingly frustrated with local, oblast, and national officials for repeated and continued lies.

A functional military would do a short stand down to review procedures, and the careers of whoever decided how the sortie would be executed would be over. There would be an engineering review of the failure and a shift in target packages and prioritizations until the "why" is figured out. In a functional military.

Final hot take, given the failure rate, it is only a matter of time before Ukraine gets its hands on a semi-intact FAB-500S-E with damage limited to the force of impact when it hit the ground.

Aberdeen and Langley will be very interested.