Russia on high alert after drone crashes near Moscow

A drone crashed near a natural gas distribution station southeast of Moscow on Tuesday in an apparent failed attack 110km from the centre of the Russian capital, the regional governor said.

Andrei Vorobyov reported the incident near the town of Kolomna shortly after the defence ministry accused Ukraine of attempting two drone strikes in southern Russia overnight.

Ukraine does not publicly claim responsibility for attacks inside Russia. If it were behind the Kolomna incident, it would be its closest attempted drone strike to the Russian capital since Russia invaded Ukraine just more than a year ago.

Postings on Russian social media showed the grey metal wreckage of a drone lying in a snowdrift by the edge of a wood said to be near Kolomna. Reuters could not immediately verify the images.

Vorobyov said the drone appeared to have been intended to strike a “civil infrastructure facility” but there was no damage. He said the FSB security agency was dealing with the situation and there was no danger to residents.

Earlier, the defence ministry accused Ukraine of launching attack drones towards civil infrastructure targets in the southern regions of Krasnodar and Adygea. It said its anti-drone defence systems forced the drones to veer off course and miss their targets.

“Both drones lost control and deviated from their flight paths. One fell into a field, the other, deviating from its trajectory, did not harm the intended target,” it said.

There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian authorities.

Russian state news agencies earlier reported a fire at an oil depot in the Krasnodar region, 240km southeast of the Crimean peninsula, after a drone was spotted flying overhead.

The main civilian airport of Russia’s second city, St Petersburg, suspended all flights for an hour on Tuesday morning for what the defence ministry said were exercises involving fighter jets in Russia’s western airspace.

In early December, Russia said three military personnel were killed in alleged Ukrainian drone attacks on two airbases hundreds of kilometres from the front lines in Ukraine.

On December 26, it said it had shot down another Ukrainian drone close to one of the airbases — near the city of Saratov, where Russian strategic nuclear bombers are based — and that three more airforce personnel were killed.

Reuters