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Stray Missiles Hit Steppes, Black Sea, Flats




An out-of-control Russian missile Monday slammed into a ship on the Black Sea, while Ukrainian authorities admitted an explosion in an apartment block last week that killed three was also caused by a rogue Ukrainian missile.


And in a third unrelated missile accident, Kazakhstan asked neighboring Russia on Monday to stop testing missiles near its border after a Russian rocket went astray last week and crashed in a ball of fire near a Kazakh village.


One person was injured Monday when a Russian dummy sea-to-sea cruise missile accidentally slammed into a Ukrainian ship during an exercise off Sevastopol, home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet.


"According to our information, one person was injured and some minor damage was caused to the ship," a spokesman for the Russian navy said.


He said an investigation had been launched.


In Kiev, Ukrainian Defense Minister Olexander Kuzmuk told reporters the missile hit the Vereshchagin passenger ship while the vessel was crossing the area of the naval exercises en route from Istanbul, Turkey.


In a separate incident, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said earlier Monday it was virtually certain that one of its tactical missiles fired during a training exercise last week had struck an apartment block and caused an explosion that killed three people and wounded five more.


It did not give a reason for the missile's malfunction.


The Kazakh Foreign Ministry confirmed earlier media reports that a Strizh-3 rocket exploded about two kilometers from Primorye in western Kazakhstan after its launch from a Russian military site near the Caspian Sea. There were no casualties.


"Of course, this is a very unpleasant incident. The most terrible thing is that people could have suffered," Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerlan Idrisov told a news conference in the commercial capital of Almaty.

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