Ukraine War: Russian missile suffers epic malfunction; boomerangs into troops who fired it

Amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, several dramatic videos from different war zones have surfaced repeatedly. Some shocking, some brutal, and some heart-wrenching. However, a video of one rogue Russian surface-to-air defence missile doing a u-turn to smash into the troops who fired it due to a spectacular malfunction has gone viral.

According to reports, the epic failure occurred in the early hours of Friday morning near the town of Alchevsk, about 55 miles south of Severodonetsk, where the fiercest fighting has been raging.

The video shows the Russian missile from a volley launched in the Luhansk region turning 180 degrees in mid-air to smash into almost the exact location from where it was launched.

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Reports added that pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine from the secessionist Luhansk People's Republic could have been operating the air defence missile system, which may have been an S300. Although it is doubtful, some have speculated that the issue may have been caused by a loitering Ukrainian drone jamming or hacking the system.

Local media reports claimed a fire erupted from the site not far from residential buildings. There were no reports on casualties Russian and separatist forces suffered in the mishap.

In 2018, a malfunctioning US-made Patriot air defence missile being used to intercept ballistic missiles launched by Yemen's Houthi group struck a residential neighbourhood in northeastern Riyadh.

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Russia's much-heralded anti-aircraft missile systems have had difficulty neutralising Ukraine's use of loitering drones to attack targets throughout the three-month conflict, most notably the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone. 

However, Russia has been using its concentrated artillery barrages with far better success to gradually drive Ukrainian positions in Severodonetsk back at the expense of essentially razing the city to the ground.

As a result of Russia frequently attacking their munitions factories and storage and their artillery running out of ammo, Ukraine has demanded long-range, high-precision artillery missile weapons from the West.

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The United States has provided the most military hardware and other supplies. It recently stated that it would deliver another 450 million dollars worth of new weapons, including four HIMARS rocket launchers. 

The systems offer a capability that Ukraine sorely lacks in the blazing battlefields near Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in the east. They can launch numerous precision missiles simultaneously at an expanded range of 50 miles.

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• Russia
• Ukraine
• Ukraine War
• Vladimir Putin
• Russian Forces