Ukrainian drone gets within 80km of Kremlin

The drone was likely targeting civilian infrastructure and represents a significant escalation of the air war between Kyiv and Moscow.

A Ukrainian serviceman controls a drone. Picture: AFP.

A Ukrainian-made drone crashed barely 80km from the Kremlin on Tuesday and others were brought down across Russia in a significant escalation of the air war between Kyiv and Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the FSB security service to step up efforts to identify saboteurs and western spies shortly after the attempted attacks.

Andrey Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, said that an unmanned aerial vehicle had come down close to the city of Kolomna, southeast of the capital. He said there were no deaths and no damage on the ground.

The drone attack is the closest Ukrainian forces have come to striking the Russian capital since Putin ordered tanks over the border over a year ago. “Soon Putin might get very afraid to show himself in public, as drones can reach far distances,” Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister, said.

Russian media said the drone had fallen within metres of a gas distribution station owned by Gazprom, the state-controlled energy giant. It was identified as a UJ-22 Airborne, a strike drone with a range of almost 800km that is manufactured by Ukraine’s Ukrjet company.

“Apparently the drone quickly lost altitude, possibly due to running out of fuel, and damaged its wing against the trees, which caused it to fall,” said Shot, a Russian Telegram channel.

Earlier in the day the airspace around St Petersburg, Russia’s second city, was closed after a large drone-like object was spotted, with Russian fighter jets believed to have been scrambled to shoot it down.

The defence ministry claimed later that the airspace had been closed because of drills. It also said its forces had shot down drones attempting to attack civilian infrastructure in the Krasnodar and Adygea regions in southern Russia. Drone attacks were also reported in the Bryansk and Belgorod regions near the Ukraine border. One drone flew through the window of a flat in Belgorod, where 25 people have been killed by Ukrainian shelling.

Russia installed air-defence systems on the roofs of government and military buildings in Moscow last month as well as close to Putin’s residences.

In December, suspected Ukrainian drones twice attacked an airfield in Saratov, about 560km inside Russia, killing three servicemen. Officials in Kyiv celebrate strikes in Russia but do not claim responsibility for them, often attributing them to “careless smoking”. Russia said last year that it had repeatedly shot down drones over Crimea.

Speaking in Moscow after the attacks on Tuesday, Mr Putin urged vigilance against western intelligence agents that he said were seeking to activate “terrorist” or “extremist” groups in Russia. The Kremlin has designated groups such as the FBK anti-corruption organisation founded by Alexei Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader, as “extremist”.

Russia should work harder to prevent “sabotage groups” from entering the country from Ukraine, he added – comments that coincided with an apparent rejection of a peace plan put forward by China.

Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin’s spokesman, said that Russia would not withdraw its forces until Kyiv recognised its rule in Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, the four territories it attempted to annex in September.

Mr Putin said at the weekend that Russia was fighting for its very existence, and that Russians as a people might not survive if Ukraine wins the war.

The Times