A drone crashed in failed attack southeast of Moscow says regional governor

• A drone crashed near a natural gas distribution station southeast of Moscow.
• Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for internal Russian attacks.
• Ukraine was accused by the Defense Ministry of launching attack drones against civil infrastructure.

A drone crashed near a natural gas distribution station southeast of Moscow on Tuesday according to the regional governor,  in an apparent failed attack 110 kilometres (68 miles) from the Russian capital’s centre.

Andrei Vorobyov reported the incident near Kolomna shortly after Ukraine was accused by the Defense Ministry of attempting two drone strikes in southern Russia overnight.

Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for internal Russian attacks. If it was behind the Kolomna incident, it would be the Russian capital’s closest attempted drone strike since Russia invaded Ukraine just over a year ago.

Posts on Russian social media depicted the grey metal wreckage of a drone lying in a snowdrift near the edge of a wood near Kolomna. The images could not be verified immediately by Reuters.

According to Vorobyov, the drone appeared to be aiming for a “civil infrastructure facility,” but there was no damage. He stated that the FSB security agency was handling the situation and that there was no danger to residents.

Previously, Ukraine was accused by the Defense Ministry of launching attack drones against civil infrastructure targets in the southern regions of Krasnodar and Adygea.

It claimed that its anti-drone defence systems caused the drones to deviate 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.

After a drone was spotted flying overhead, Russian state news agencies reported a fire at an oil depot in the Krasnodar region, about 240 kilometres (150 miles) southeast of the Crimean peninsula.

The main civilian airport in Russia’s second city, St Petersburg, halted all flights for an hour on Tuesday morning for what the Defense Ministry described as fighter jet exercises in Russia’s western airspace.

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Russia announced in early December that three military personnel had been killed in alleged Ukrainian drone attacks on two air bases hundreds of miles from Ukraine’s front lines.

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