Vladimir Putin was left red-faced last week when Russian forces reportedly dropped bombs on their own territory by mistake three times within just a few days.
The first glide bomb thought to have been released by mistake was found on June 17 in the village of Krapivnoye, part of the western Russian region of Belgorod, independent Russian news outlet Astra wrote on the messaging platform Telegram.
On the same day, Astra reported sources in the local emergency services claiming another bomb was found in the Dobroye village in Lipetsk.
A third was found the following day in Belgorod's Tseplyaevo-Vtoroe village, the news outlet added. It is not clear whether any of these bombs detonated upon reaching the ground, but no casualties were reported.
These three recent incidents brought the number of Russian bombs deployed by accident in Russia over the past four months alone to a whopping 103, Astra has claimed.
Since the beginning of the war, the Kremlin admitted on some occasions that its forces had accidentally discharged ammunition on the Russian territory.
In April last year, the Russian Ministry of Defense acknowledged a Russian Sukhoi-34 fighter jet had “accidentally discharged aircraft ordnance” onto Belgorod. The bomb damaged several buildings, injured three people and left a 60ft crater on the ground.
Neighboring eastern Ukraine, the Belgorod region has been the most affected by these misfires.
In April, Russia's air force “dropped” an X-59 missile in the region that was later destroyed on the spot by the military, Astra reported at the time.
In early May, open-source intelligence accounts claimed a Russian jet targeting Ukraine's Kharkiv with glide-bomb airstrikes mistakenly dropped munitions on Belgorod.
Earlier this year, the UK's Ministry of Defense analyzed these incidents and argued that this “continued propensity for ammunition accidents” may be “exacerbated by inadequate training and crew fatigue”.
Russia has also been suffering a series of friendly fire blunders since the beginning of the war.
Last week, Russian air defenses reportedly shot down a £19million Ka-29 assault helicopter near the Black Sea resort of Anapa as it was hunting down Ukrainian sea drones.