After the incidents in the southern and border regions of Krasnodar and Adygea, Russia’s Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of sending the flying objects and thus targeting civilian infrastructure. On Tuesday afternoon, the ministry then said that two drones had been “neutralized” in the Krasnodar region and in the Caucasus republic of Adygea without causing any damage.
According to the ministry, Ukraine tried to attack “civil infrastructure facilities” there. According to media reports, the attack in Krasnodar is said to have taken place near a barracks. Accordingly, two drones loaded with explosives landed in a Rosneft oil depot in the city of Tuapse and caused a fire that was “quickly extinguished”, as the Russian online portal Basa reported. Ukraine did not provide any information on this.
Drones also in other places in Russia
On Tuesday morning, the governor of the southern Russian region of Bryansk, Alexander Bogomas, reported the downing of a Ukrainian drone on Telegram. However, there were “neither casualties nor damage”. A similar incident is said to have taken place in the Belgorod region on Monday evening. For his part, the governor of the region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that debris from three drones had been found in the streets of the regional capital of the same name.
In the course of the incident, a residential building had to be evacuated in the middle of the night after a drone crashed into the building, Basa reported. “People were taken to a safe place,” Belgorod Mayor Valentin Demidov said via Telegram. Another drone is said to have landed on the roof of a supermarket and exploded. There is no independent confirmation of the incidents.
crash near Moscow
Finally, the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov, also reported a drone crash. The missile fell from the sky in the city of Kolomna, around 100 kilometers south-east of the capital, near a Gazprom gas compressor station. There are “no casualties or damage to the ground,” Vorobyov said. The Russian secret service FSB is investigating the incident, it said.
The authorities did not publish any information on which infrastructure facilities the attacks are said to have been aimed at. Gazprom told state news agency RIA Novosti that the “drone crash” did not result in an “emergency.” According to local reports, the drone could have reached the Kremlin in less than an hour if it hadn’t crashed.
Flights in St. Petersburg canceled
On Tuesday, Pulkovo Airport in Russia’s second largest city, St. Petersburg, also ceased operations for around two hours. No reasons were given, later there was official talk of a military exercise. Again, many observers suspected that the real reason could have been an enemy flying object. The Russian media said that a flying object had been sighted over the city, possibly a drone.
For this reason, fighter jets have risen, reported Basa. About an hour after flight operations had resumed, the Ministry of Defense referred to the military exercise, in which interceptor jets were also used. The ministry was quoted as saying that the air defense had the task of detecting targets, identifying them and intercepting them. Cooperation with emergency services and law enforcement agencies has also been tested.
Domestic flights had to turn back
The alleged exercise had not been announced in advance. Numerous domestic flights to St. Petersburg had to turn back, according to data from the Flightradar24 website. Flights to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad were also affected, as they have to fly via St. Petersburg. The spokesman for the Russian Presidential Office, Dmitry Peskov, did not want to comment on the reasons for the flight disruption. President Vladimir Putin was always up to date, he said.
Khodorkovsky locates connections and weaknesses
For the Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who lives abroad, all these events are not only related to each other – in his eyes they also reveal weaknesses in the Russian military: The Russian army not only has “no means to launch a massive rocket attack”, but also to stop a single drone. He added: “The survival of the citizens is not part of the Kremlin’s military strategy, they are only interested in the survival of a single person.”
Since the start of the war of aggression against Ukraine ordered by Putin more than a year ago, towns and infrastructure in Russia and in particular Russian border regions bordering Ukraine have been repeatedly hit by attacks, especially with drones. Several people died as a result. Moscow blamed the Ukrainian army.