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The Ukrainian publicly follows a policy of planned ambiguity about movements on Russian territory.
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By Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Neil MacFarquhar
Russian officials on Tuesday accused Ukraine of deploying attack drones on Russian soil, a salvo that highlights Russia’s vulnerability within its borders.
The strikes, as described by Russian officials, pierced a wide swath of Russian airspace, from Krasnodar in the south of the country about 60 miles from Moscow, the capital, in the west, on Monday night and Tuesday morning. The Ukrainian is publicly pursuing a policy of planned ambiguity about movements on Russian territory.
Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region, said on the social messaging platform Telegram that a drone crashed near the village of Gubastovo, about 60 miles from Moscow and 280 miles from the country’s border with Ukraine. Vorobyov did not specify which Ukrainian drone However, he said the Federal Security Service, Russia’s military and the main security service responded at the crash site.
Aleksandr Bogomaz, governor of the Bryansk region, said Tuesday on Telegram that, in one incident, Russian forces shot down a Ukrainian drone over the Surazhsky district, about 80 km from the Ukrainian border. He added that the drone did not appear to have caused any damage.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine also sent two drones overnight to attack civilian infrastructure in Krasnodar and Adygea in the western Caucasus, and neither of them caused damage. The spaces are located east of the Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine needs to take back its territory.
Just hours after Russia reported that Ukrainian drones had been shot down on its territory, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin delivered his annual address to the FSB, a successor company to the KGB, in which he served as an officer. In his speech, he advised that security be increasingly vigilant against sabotage and espionage carried out through Ukraine and Western countries.
“Their project is to prevent any incursion through sabotage equipment and prevent any attempt to smuggle weapons and ammunition into Russia,” Putin said.
For nearly a year, local officials in Russia have accused Ukraine of using drones and missiles to attack oil depots and other infrastructure on its territory, as well as airfields. Ukraine has not publicly stated that it is carrying out cross-border attacks, but the salvos intensified in December. when drones attacked two army airports in Russia. A drone also hit an oil facility near an airfield in Russia’s Kursk province.
These strikes appeared to be a reaction to Russian missile movements and drone strikes in October aimed at crippling Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The firing of Russian missiles and rockets has also killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians.
On Tuesday, the St. Petersburg city government said the airspace around Pulkovo airport had been temporarily closed, without giving a reason. A separator of the Defense Ministry said the painters continued to work normally and that their air defense forces conducted operations in Russia’s western area. , closer to the border with Ukraine, to “detect, intercept and identify” intruders in Russian airspace. It was unclear whether the situation was similar to the closure of the airport.
Russia has also noted a series of high-profile attacks on its infrastructure, which have embarrassed the Kremlin and undermined the country’s military superiority. In October, an explosion broke a bridge connecting Russia to Crimea, and in April, a Ukrainian missile sank the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, the Moskva.
Drones may not be the only form of electronic warfare available in Ukraine. The Defense Ministry in Moscow said Tuesday that hackers cut off radio and television stations in parts of Russia to broadcast an airstrike alert. The Ministry of Emergency Situations said the precautionary form was false.
The local government in the Russian regions bordering Ukraine said they faced fire from Ukrainian forces. Ukraine, for its part, says Russian forces regularly shell the border provinces of Sumy and Chernihiv.
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