Moscow accuses Ukraine of attempting multiple drone strikes

• A Ukrainian drone crashed near the village of Gubastovo, southeast of the capital.
• The facility was not damaged, according to state media, citing the region’s Energy Ministry.
• Ukraine’s Defense Ministry made no comment on the strikes at the time.

After a fire broke out at an oil depot and authorities abruptly closed airspace above the country’s second-largest city, Russia’s Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of launching a wave of attempted drone strikes targeting infrastructure deep inside Russia, including near the capital.

Moscow metropolitan area According to Governor Andrey Vorobyov, a Ukrainian drone crashed near the village of Gubastovo, southeast of the capital. The drone was apparently aimed at “civilian infrastructure,” which was later confirmed to be a gas facility run by the state-owned company Gazprom.

The facility was not damaged, according to state media, citing the region’s Energy Ministry.

State media later released a photo of what they claimed was the crashed device, which resembled a Ukrainian-made UJ-22 attack drone.

The UJ-22 is a small and versatile aircraft that can fly through bad weather and travel up to 500 miles (800 kilometers). The location and date of the photo of the crashed drone are unknown.

The crash was allegedly one of several attempted strikes, with state media reporting a drone was shot down near the Belarus border and the defence ministry claiming two more strikes were thwarted in the Krasnodar and Adygea regions using drone-jamming technology.

“Both drones lost control and deviated from their flight path,” the defense ministry said in a statement. “One UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) fell in a field, and another UAV, deviating from the trajectory, did not harm the attacked civilian infrastructure facility.”

At least one drone appeared to have eluded Russian defences, with footage posted on social media overnight and showing a fire at Rosneft’s oil depot in Tuapse, on the Black Sea coast of Krasnodar.

Although it is unclear whether the facility was the intended target, Ukraine has previously targeted oil depots on Russian-controlled territory.

Sources has been unable to independently confirm each alleged attack, and Ukraine has yet to comment on the incident. Ukraine has previously declined to comment on internal Russian attacks.

Following the alleged attacks, Russia‘s second-largest city of St. Petersburg closed its airspace Tuesday within a 200-kilometer (124-mile) radius, briefly banning incoming flights, according to state media.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had been briefed about the closures – but Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had declined to discuss whether it was related to the “incidents in St. Petersburg and Tuapse,” state media reported.

Strikes in December

Attacks on Russian infrastructure have highlighted Ukraine’s efforts to develop longer-range combat drones.

Russia reported multiple attacks by Ukrainian drones on military infrastructure, including air bases hundreds of miles inside Russian territory and beyond the reach of Ukraine’s declared drone arsenal, in early December.

At the same time, Ukraine’s state-owned weapons manufacturer Ukroboronprom announced that it is nearing completion of a new long-range drone, though there is no public evidence that such a device has been ready for deployment or has been involved in explosions within Russia.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry made no comment on the strikes at the time, though a presidential adviser tweeted a cryptic message hinting that Kyiv was indeed behind the December attacks.

“The Earth is round – discovery made by Galileo. Astronomy was not studied in Kremlin, giving preference to court astrologers. If it was, they would know: If something is launched into other countries’ airspace, sooner or later unknown flying objects will return to departure point,” he said at the time.

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