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7 Questions On Emergency Situation At July 3 Salute To Which Belarusians Received No Answers So Far

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7 Questions On Emergency Situation At July 3 Salute To Which Belarusians Received No Answers So Far

Both the Ministry of Defense and the Investigatory Committee remain silent.

A 64-year-old Minsk woman died during a salute on the “Independence Day” in Minsk, and another ten people are on the list of casualties. According to the preliminary information of the IC, the reason for the explosions was poor-quality ammunition of the Russian origin.

Tut.by asked the Ministry of Defense and the Investigatory Committee to answer the questions that appeared in the recent several days after the tragedy. They refused. The IC promised that “as soon as the evidence base is consolidated, the conclusions of the appointed examinations are received, upon the results of the complex of investigative measures, the relevant information on will be published”.

Were all the fireworks projectiles bought from the Russian company Piro-Ross? Have there been other suppliers?

The day after the tragedy, Chairman of the Investigatory Committee Ivan Naskevich, said the following:

“The case is exceptional, no such situations have been recorded before. The main version under consideration is that the fireworks were of poor quality. The fireworks, which were used on this day, were made in Russia. It has been established that mortars of three calibers were used: 105, 195 and 310 mm. An abnormal situation arose with the 195 mortars.”

The Piro-Ross product catalog for 2013–2014, which is available on the company's website, consists of two parts: its own production of pyrotechnics and the production of China. The projectiles of the 195 mm caliber appear in the Chinese list.

The Investigatory Committee detained two representatives of the Russian company, and the explosions occurred in three places out of six. How is this possible? Or did they charge all installations?

The Ministry of Defense reported: “The explosions occurred in three of the six places where the salute was being fired. After the first explosions, the salute in these places was discontinued.”

The IC initiated a criminal case under Part 2 of Article 463 (violation of the rules for handling substances and objects that pose an increased risk to others) and detained the suspects - two employees of the Russian company Piro-Ross. These are young people 25 and 29 years old. It remains unclear: did the two of them charged all the installations? How is it technically and physically possible?

So who charged the installations? Where were our military?

PHOTO: MIKALAI PIATROU

In the same official report of the Ministry of Defense, it was stated that “the military personnel of the salute installations teams underwent special training and were allowed to conduct the salute by the relevant orders”. So did our specialists charge the installation on July 3, or it were exclusively the representatives of the Russian company? And what can be seen on the videotape, which was made “to exclude the human factor”?

So is this about the low-quality projectiles or the “mechanical action”, applied on them?

Head of the IC Ivan Naskevich voiced the low-quality fireworks as a reason. However, the Committee’s information on the detention states: “in the process of charging the salute installations, the representatives of the supplier’s company violated the order of working with fireworks products, namely: they applied mechanical action to the charges of pyrotechnics when loading mortars, not provided for by the rules for handling them”.

The Investigatory Committee does not explain what kind of mechanical action is meant. How did they cause the damage? By chance? Consciously?

How far was the cordon during the salute?

The day before the holiday, the Minsk-News Agency spoke with the commander of the patrol company of the commandant battalion Aliaksei Kruhlik, who told “how the military are preparing to conquer the hearts of thousands of spectators.” The material reported that a cordon will be set up within a radius of 500 meters from the firing positions.

If you look at the map, you will see that there are 490 meters from the installation of the salute to the place where 64-year-old Natalia M. died. A metal fragment hit a woman in the neck, damaging the carotid artery. Some eyewitnesses who watched the holiday right in the Victory Park, noted: they saw no cordon.

“The security perimeter was defined for a normal situation. The incident went beyond the scope of such situations, all injuries to citizens were caused outside a certain perimeter, it is almost impossible to calculate the spread in case of an emergency,” said Chairman of the Investigatory Committee of Belarus Ivan Naskevich.

The head of the office did not specify what kind of perimeter it is.

Were the projectiles of the Russian company Piro-Ross used before?

“I will not reveal secrets. But I will say that this time we will use new fireworks, which have not been shown before. You will see the general picture at the salute,” commander of the patrol company of the commandant battalion Aliaksei Kruhlik told the news agency Minsk-Novosti the day before the holiday.

In a conversation with Office Life at Piro-Ross, it was said that they have been working with the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus for several years. They clarified: the supply of products this year did not differ from those that took place before.

What will change after the tragedy?

Experts say that now all over the world they use plastic, paper, aluminum mortars to launch fireworks, not steel ones, which the military had in Minsk on July 3.

- The grenade principle happened: people got damaged due to scattering of metal fragments of a mortar. If there was plastic, aluminum, the radius of expansion would be about one hundred meters, ”says Kanstantsin Marozau, director of Calvin LLC, whose company was responsible for the pyrotechnic show on July 3.

Will our military technology change? Will they increase control over the process? At what distance from the firing positions will they put the cordon now? Who is responsible for the general safety of the audience during the salute? And most importantly: what is being done now so that such tragedies will not recur?

The Investigatory Committee: “The requested information is not disclosed in the interests of the investigation”

- The content of the questions submitted by you is the subject of research and proceedings during the investigation of the criminal case, - said the official representative of the Investigatory Committee Siarhei Kabakovich. - At present, the necessary investigative and other procedural actions are being carried out aimed at establishing all the circumstances of the incident, including those related to the points mentioned by you. In the interests of the investigation, the requested information is not disclosed at the moment, however, as soon as the evidence base is consolidated, the conclusions of the appointed examinations are received, upon the results of the complex of investigative measures, the relevant information on will be published.

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