Russia inexplicably dropped another 3 bombs on its own territory, bringing its total reported self-bombings to 103 this year, opposition media says
Russia has dropped 103 bombs on its own territories in the past four months, Astra reports.
The outlet said three more FABs were found in Russian villages near the border.
One independent Russian analyst suggested these were accidents caused by cheap guidance kits.
The Russian opposition media channel Astra reported on Wednesday that the Kremlin's forces deployed three Soviet glide bombs onto Russian-controlled regions this week.
No injuries were reported, but Astra assessed that the new incidents meant Russia had dropped a total of 103 bombs on its own territories in the past four months.
The independent outlet, which is vocally critical of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, wrote in a Telegram post that one glide bomb was found on Monday in the village of Krapivnoye in Belgorod.
Another was found in Dobroye village in Lipetsk that day, Astra reported, citing sources in the local emergency services. The third bomb was found on Tuesday in Tseplyaevo-Vtoroe, a village in Belgorod, Astra added.
All three villages are in regions near Ukraine. It's unclear whether any of the munitions detonated.
The Kremlin has admitted to accidental discharges before, including in April last year when a Su-34 bombed a residential area in Belgorod and injured two women.
As of Wednesday evening, Russian state media hasn't addressed this week's spate of bomb deployments reported by Astra.
Astra's assessment came amid multiple reports of the Kremlin's forces accidentally discharging munitions for months over Russian or Russian-occupied territories.
Belgorod, a region along Ukraine's border, is reported to have received the most self-inflicted strikes. One extreme example involves reports on May 4 that an FAB-500 had fallen into a civilian area, damaging 30 houses and injuring seven people.
"Such errors have destructive and lethal consequences for the Russian population," the UK's Ministry of Defence wrote in May of the self-bombings.
The Ministry previously assessed that these incidents on Russian soil might point to fatigue from the Kremlin's air and ground crews or a lack of training for frontline troops.
A Russian analyst says cheap electronics may be to blame
Ruslan Leviev, a Russian analyst who founded the independent open-source investigation organization Conflict Intelligence Team, proposed this week that the accidents might be caused by deficiencies in Russian munitions.
"One of our theories for these malfunctions is the shortage of components responsible for the bomb wings' activation," Leviev said in a Wednesday YouTube video uploaded by the Russian political figure Maxim Katz.
Leviev theorized that, unlike Western-made munitions, the UMPK kit used by Russia to convert unguided munitions into guided munitions was probably built for cheap with civilian electronics of lower standards than their military-grade counterparts.
He added that other defects, such as poor workmanship or mechanical issues, could also be at fault.
"This problem persists since the UMPK was first used, but no one seems to be on it," Leviev said.
Leviev estimated, however, that the percentage of faulty bombs was too small to significantly undermine the Russian munitions' effectiveness.
The Russian ministry of defense's press department didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
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