A concerned resident told police that he had seen a pigeon painted in the yellow and blue colours of the Ukrainian flag flying over Moscow clutching a mine.

An entire police squad was dispatched in response to the call, but officers did not find the purported pigeon or any mines, Russian newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets reports.

In March 2022, shortly after Russia launched its illegal invasion of Ukraine, top Russian defence officials claimed that the US was “training migratory birds to migrate from Ukraine to Russia and distribute biological weapons”.