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Airborne assault vehicle falls down in Russia's Siberia due to parachute problem — source

The vehicle fell on a landing site prepared for the personnel and hardware

MOSCOW, June 18 /TASS/. An airborne assault vehicle fell down from a plane near Ulan Ude, the capital of Russia's Republic of Burtyatia, because of problems with parachutes. The fall could not have caused a fire, a high-ranking Defense Ministry source told TASS on Thursday.

"A cable responsible for the main parachute system broke down. The vehicle fell on a landing site prepared for the personnel and hardware. There was no forest there that could go ablaze," the source said.

The source said the BMD-2 airborne assault vehicle that fell down had reserve ammunition but it did not explode.

"The assault vehicle had 200 machine-gun cartridges and 30 shells for a 30-mm artillery gun. Both were a dummy load, which could not explode when the vehicle struck the ground. And they did not explode," the source stressed.