Drone shot down near Putin’s swanky country residence

A kamikaze drone was shot down Tuesday near President Vladimir Putin’s lavish country residence outside Moscow — the same region where Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private jet crashed last month.

Dramatic footage published by the Telegram news channel Mash captured the moment the unmanned aircraft was destroyed by Russian air defenses, lighting up the sky over the Tver region.

It was one of three suspected Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow that were neutralized Tuesday, with a fourth destroyed over Russian-annexed Crimea, the defense ministry said.  

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that drone debris in the Tver region fell in the Zavidovo village, which is home to Putin’s official residence called “Rus.” During Soviet times, it was known as a Politburo hunting lodge.

Notably, the drone was downed in the same region where Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private jet crashed last month, killing all 10 people on board, exactly two months after the rogue mercenary’s short-lived mutiny.

There was no indication that Putin was at his “Rus’ palace Tuesday.

Putin’s main residences are the Novo-Ogaryovo complex in the Moscow region and the Grand Kremlin Palace — where official events are held.

Air defense systems destroyed two other drones over the Kaluga region and over the Istra district of the Moscow region near the capital.

Sobyanin claimed that the drones “were trying to carry out an attack on Moscow” and that a commercial building was damaged in the Istra district, which lies 40 miles northwest of the Kremlin.

Almost 50 flights were canceled or delayed early Tuesday from the four major airports around the capital over drone strike fears.

Drone attacks on targets deep inside Russia and in Ukraine’s occupied territories have become almost a daily occurrence since May, when two suspected Ukrainian drones were shot down over the Kremlin.

Ukraine hardly ever takes direct responsibility for such drone strikes but publicly applauds them.

With Post wires