A Russian sergeant accidentally blew up his own troops after he detonated a hand grenade in his dorm at the Russian border.
According to reports, a platoon commander detonated a RGD-5 grenade in a weapons storage room in the Tonenkoye village community center in in the Belgorod region on Sunday killing three soldiers and injuring 16 others. Eight soldiers were still missing.
Belgorod is located about 46 miles from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and has Russian training grounds and military bases.
“The preliminary cause of the explosion is careless handling of ammunition,” according to Russian state news outlet TASS.
The sergeant took up the grenade “to establish authority over his troops,” Newsweek reported, citing Baza, a Russian Telegram channel that regularly post updates about Russia’s security issues.
The resulting explosion caused a fire that forced people to evacuate from nearby homes and took firefighters four hours to extinguish.
