News: Is Ukraine Waging a Drone War With Russia?

Ukraine on Wednesday denied targeting Russia, suggesting an attempt to launch a domestic attack - something Moscow does not accept.

Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted, with a hint of dark humor, that "panic and collapse" in Russia was intensifying, "manifested by UFO domestic attacks on infrastructure sites more and more".

Throughout the war, Ukrainian leaders and senior officials consistently denied any responsibility for attacks on Russian soil — and often instead mocked the disorganized Russian military.

A Ukrainian military expert said that while Kiev could and should attack Russian territory, it did not want to reveal details of its operations there.

Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former Ukrainian chief of general staff, said: "In principle, we are allowed to launch strikes against aggressor countries, but we adhere to the rule that if this happens, [strikes] should be directed first at the military location," the Armed Forces, told Al Jazeera.

"But because of many circumstances, at this stage we will not announce what we did and how we did it in enemy territory," he said.

Analysts say Kiev is preparing for more attacks using its growing fleet of domestically-produced drones - a concern among top pro-Kremlin figures.

“I have a lot of questions,” Tina Kandelaki, acting head of the TNT television network, wrote on Telegram.

"Is this our new reality? How much will [hit] the next attack? Does the Department of Defense have a plan to protect our cities? Who will keep our people safe?" she wrote.

What happened so far?
Two explosions rocked an airport in pro-Putin Belarus on Feb. 26, damaging one of Russia's most prized weapons — one of only nine A-50 aircraft that can identify the location of Ukrainian air defenses. Belarusian "partisan fighters" claimed responsibility.

At least four drones failed to reach a power station in the western Russian city of Belgorod, less than 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border, on Monday night.

A "UFO" was spotted over St. Petersburg, where Putin was born, on Tuesday.

Airspace over Russia's second-largest city, nearly 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) north of Ukraine, was briefly closed and fighter jets took off as part of a rehearsal - an exercise "to intercept and identify conditional targets", a defense official said, according to reports.

Earlier, though, the Kremlin said little when asked about the events in St. Petersburg, other than to say Putin was aware of them.

On the same day, at least one drone carrying explosives went down about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Moscow, but according to regional governor Andrei Vorobyev, there was no damage.

Hours earlier, the "UFO" was reported to have crashed near an oil refinery and a farm in southwestern Russia, more than 800 kilometers (500 meters) from the nearest military facility in Odessa, Ukraine.

After locals reportedly heard two explosions, the refinery - the only one on Russia's Black Sea coast with a tanker terminal - caught fire, engulfing 200 square meters but was quickly extinguished.

Also on Tuesday, another "drone of the Ukrainian army" was shot down in the nearby Bryansk region, local officials said.

On Wednesday, Russia said its air defenses repelled a drone attack on occupied Crimea that Ukraine blamed; Moscow has long accused Kiev of using the weapons to attack the affiliated peninsula.

In July, they attacked the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, wounding six people and forcing Moscow-appointed authorities to cancel Russia's Navy Day celebrations in Crimea.

More drone strikes on Crimea destroyed military aircraft and an ammunition depot in August, and damaged naval ships in October.

In early December, a Ukrainian drone attacked a Russian military air base 650 kilometers (400 miles) east of the border that hosts strategic bombers used to launch missile attacks on Ukraine.

Most likely, the attack involved a modified Soviet-designed Tu-141 jet drone, which was produced in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov.

Since last May, apparent Ukrainian shelling and drone strikes on Russia's westernmost regions of Belgorod, Kursk, Bryansk and Orlov have become the norm as they destroy homes and injure even civilians were killed.

Several Russians, including a 12-year-old girl and a 70-year-old woman, have been killed along the border since last May.

Does Ukraine's Apparent Attack on Russia Matter?
So far, most Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory have been ineffective, according to historian Nikolai Mitrokhin of the University of Bremen in Germany.

Eight out of every 10 Ukrainian drones fail to reach their targets because Russia either finds a way to intercept and destroy them or because they lose contact with their operators, he said.

Drones that do reach their targets pose no significant danger, he said.

However, "about once a month, the Ukrainian military manages to organize a really massive diversion to hit Russian aviation, or very rarely, Russian fuel depots," he told Al Jazeera.

However, their impact on general warfare scenarios is far less immediate than using the US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, he said.

In Ukraine in recent months, swarms of Russian and Iranian-made Shahid drones have wreaked havoc on Ukrainian military personnel, critical infrastructure and residential areas.

One flew over a reporter's apartment window in October.

Kiev has been frantically looking for a way to deal with the attack.

This week's attack was "more of a warning and a test of the capabilities of the [Ukrainian-made] drones before they attack. It was a signal to Russia," Alexei Kush, a Kiev-based analyst, told Al Jazeera — Don’t catalyze a missile attack on Ukraine.

As the Russian military was conserving resources for the onslaught that was being passed on, Ukraine "showed it had something to respond to," he said.

A Tu-141 was likely used to attack the Tuapse refinery on Tuesday.

Russian media said other attacks were carried out by Russian-made Granat-4 drones, Chinese civilian models loaded with British-made plastic explosives or Ukrainian-made UJ-22 drones.

The UJ-22, which looks like a scaled-down version of a World War II fighter, was unveiled in 2021. They can carry bombs or jet anti-tank grenades and fly up to 800 kilometers (500 miles).

Production of brand new Ukrainian-made drones is not centralized, and Russia has little ability to destroy manufacturers with precision strikes, he said.

"The industrial potential is sufficient, and the potential is scattered, there are no large holding companies or factories in Ukraine monopolizing drones, so the chances of Russia attacking industrial sites are very doubtful," he said.

Other analysts, however, dismissed the validity of Ukraine's alleged attack.

"These trivial incidents don't make any sense. At least, so far," Pavel Luzin, a defense analyst at the Jamestown Foundation think tank in Washington, told Al Jazeera.