Drones that the Kremlin said were launched by Ukraine flew deep inside Russian territory, including one that got within 100kms of Moscow, signaling breaches in Russian defences as President Vladimir Putin ordered stepped-up protection at the border.
Officials said the drones caused no injuries and did not inflict any significant damage, but the attacks on Monday night and Tuesday morning raised questions about Russian defence capabilities more than a year after the country's full-scale invasion of its neighbour.
Moscow blamed Kyiv for the assaults. Ukrainian officials did not immediately claim responsibility, but they similarly avoided directly acknowledging responsibility for past strikes and sabotage while emphasising Ukraine's right to hit any target in Russia.
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Although Putin did not refer to any specific attacks in a speech in the Russian capital, his comments came hours after the drones targeted several areas in southern and western Russia. Authorities closed the airspace over St Petersburg in response to what some reports said was a drone.
Also on Tuesday, several Russian television stations aired a missile attack warning that officials blamed on a hacking attack.
The drone attacks targeted regions inside Russia along the border with Ukraine and deeper into the country, according to local Russian authorities.
A drone fell near the village of Gubastovo, less than 100kms from Moscow, Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the region surrounding the Russian capital, said in an online statement.
The drone did not inflict any damage, Vorobyov said, but it likely targeted "a civilian infrastructure object."
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Pictures of the drone showed it was a small Ukrainian-made model with a reported range of up to 800kms but no capacity to carry a large load of explosives.
Russian forces early on Tuesday shot down another Ukrainian drone over the Bryansk region, local Governor Aleksandr Bogomaz said in a Telegram post.
Three drones also targeted Russia's Belgorod region on Monday night, with one flying through an apartment window in its namesake capital, local authorities reported. Regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the drones caused minor damage to buildings and cars.
The Russian Defence Ministry said Ukraine used drones to attack facilities in the Krasnodar region and neighbouring Adygea. It said the drones were brought down by electronic warfare assets, adding that one of them crashed into a field and another diverted from its flight path and missed an infrastructure facility it was supposed to attack.
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Meanwhile, the United States directly warned on Tuesday that it would target Chinese firms or people involved in any effort to send lethal aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine, underscoring a fast-deepening showdown with its superpower rival.
In the most specific public admonition on the issue to Beijing so far, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken underlined that arming Moscow's forces would cause China serious problems around the world.
"China can't have it both ways when it comes to … the Russian aggression in Ukraine. It can't be putting forward peace proposals on the one hand, while actually feeding the flames of the fire that Russia has started with the other hand," Blinken said in Kazakhstan.
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