According to the regional governor, a drone crashed 100 km from Moscow on Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered officials to tighten control over the border with Ukraine after a spate of drone strikes that Russian authorities blamed on Kiev posed a new challenge to Moscow a year after its full-scale invasion of its neighbour.
A drone crashed just 100km (60 miles) southeast of Moscow on Tuesday in an alarming development for Russian defenses.
While Putin made no reference to specific attacks in a speech in the Russian capital, he stepped up border controls hours after drone strikes targeted several areas in southern and western Russia and authorities closed the skies over St Petersburg in response to what some reports said was a drone.
Also on Tuesday, several Russian television stations broadcast a missile strike warning officials blamed hacking.
The drone strikes caused no casualties, but caused an uproar after the war in Ukraine celebrated its first anniversary last week.
Ukrainian officials did not immediately claim responsibility for the attacks, but they similarly avoided directly acknowledging responsibility for previous attacks and sabotage, while emphasizing Kiev’s right to hit any target in Russia after Moscow announced its full-scale invasion of Ukraine had launched.
No drone damage
A spate of drone strikes on Monday evening and Tuesday morning targeted regions of Russia along the border with Ukraine and deeper into the country, according to local Russian authorities.
A drone fell near the village of Gubastovo, 100 km southeast of Moscow, Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the region around the Russian capital, said in a statement.
The drone caused no damage, Vorobyov said. He did not describe the drone as Ukrainian, but said it was probably aimed at “a civilian infrastructure object”.
Photos from the drone showed that it was a Ukrainian-made type. It reportedly has a range of up to 800 km (nearly 500 miles) but is unable to carry a large load of explosives.
Russian forces shot down a Ukrainian drone over the southwestern region of Bryansk early Tuesday morning, Governor Aleksandr Bogomaz said in a Telegram post. He said there were no casualties in the incident not far from the Ukrainian and Belarusian borders.
Local authorities reported that three drones also targeted Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine on Monday evening, one of which flew through the window of an apartment in the capital, dubbed Belgorod. It is located 80 km north of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the drones caused minor damage to buildings and cars, but no casualties.
Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine used drones to attack facilities in the southern region of Krasnodar and neighboring Adygea. It said the drones had been brought down by electronic warfare means, adding that one crashed into a field and diverted another from its designated flight path, missing an infrastructure facility it was supposed to attack.
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