Drone crashes in attempted attack southeast of Moscow

A drone crashed near a natural gas distribution station southeast of Moscow on Tuesday in an apparent failed attack 110 kilometers (68 miles) from the center of the Russian capital, the regional governor said.

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

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

Postings on Russian social media showed the gray 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 defense ministry accused Ukraine of launching attack drones toward civil infrastructure targets in the southern regions of Krasnodar and Adygea.

It said its anti-drone defense systems had caused 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 had earlier reported a fire at an oil depot in the Krasnodar region, around 240 kilometers (150 miles) southeast of Crimea, 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 defense ministry said were exercises involving fighter jets in Russia’s western airspace.

In early December, Russia said three military personnel had been killed in alleged Ukrainian drone attacks on two air bases hundreds of miles from the front lines in Ukraine.

On December 26, it said it had shot down another Ukrainian drone close to one of the air bases - near the city of Saratov, where Russian strategic nuclear bombers are based - and that three more air force personnel had been killed.