Russian officials accused Ukraine of deploying drones over Russian territory, the latest demonstration of a significant vulnerability for the Kremlin.
A salvo of drones was deployed on Monday and into Tuesday that traveled through Russian airspace, from Krasnodar in the southern part of the country to within roughly 60 miles of Moscow in the west. Ukrainian officials have demonstrated a policy of not commenting on strikes within Russian territory, instead leaving it ambiguous.
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One of the ones crashed near the village of Gubastovo, southeast of Moscow, which was supposedly aimed at a gas facility operated by state-owned Gazprom. The facility was not damaged, CNN reported, citing Moscow region Gov. Andrey Vorobyov. State media also reported another drone was shot down near the Belarus border, while the Defense Ministry claimed two more were thwarted through the use of drone-jamming technology in the Krasnodar and Adygea regions.
“Both drones lost control and deviated from their flight path,” the ministry said in a statement. “One [unmanned aerial vehicle] fell in a field, and another UAV, deviating from the trajectory, did not harm the attacked civilian infrastructure facility.”
There were no casualties reported in the strikes.
St. Petersburg closed its airspace on Tuesday, according to state media, though officials declined to say if it was related.
This isn’t the first time Ukraine has appeared to use drones to hit targets within Russian territory.
The Engels-2 air base near Saratov, approximately 435 miles from Ukraine’s closest city, and at Dyagilevo air base near Ryazan, nearly 350 miles from Ukraine’s closest city, were targeted in early December. A day later, a drone strike hit an oil storage tank at an airfield in Kursk, Russia.
On Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced it had thwarted a “massive” drone strike on Crimea, the peninsula of Ukrainian territory that Russia annexed in 2014. Six drones were shot down, and another four were neutralized by technology and no casualties were reported, though explosions were heard in several locations.
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Ukraine has targeted Crimea in the past, though not frequently, given its lack of long-range weapons.
Ukrainian forces, on Aug. 9, struck a Russian air base near the town of Novofedorivka on the western coast of the Crimean Peninsula, while there was an explosion on the Kerch Bridge on Oct.8, which is the only bridge that connects Russia to Crimea.
