Ukraine's attack on the Russian-annexed port of Sevastopol on Sunday drew fury from Moscow, which accused Kyiv of using US-supplied ATACMS missiles equipped with cluster munitions.
Four people including two children were killed as missile fragments fell over the city, in what the Kremlin's foreign ministry called a "bloody crime".
On Friday, Russia's Defence Ministry said it had "observed an increased frequency of US strategic unmanned aerial vehicle flights over the waters of the Black Sea" which surrounds Crimea.
It said the drones were "carrying out reconnaissance" and providing information for Western-supplied Ukrainian weapons that Kyiv is planning to use to strike Russian targets.
Such flights "increase the risk of a direct confrontation" between NATO and Russia, and the army has been instructed to prepare an "operational response", the defence ministry said.
The United States routinely carries out drone flights over the Black Sea, operations that it says are conducted in neutral airspace and in accordance with international law.
- 'Bloody crime' -
Russia has repeatedly warned Washington and the West they risk becoming "direct participants" in the Ukraine conflict by supplying Kyiv with weapons.
It alleged on Sunday the United States had programmed and provided data for the missiles which targeted Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014.
Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said Ukrainians made "their own decisions" about where to strike, while the State Department pointed out Crimea is recognised internationally as part of Ukraine.
Russia nonetheless vowed there would be "consequences" and summoned US ambassador Lynne Tracy in protest.
Residents in Sevastopol were on Thursday advised to carry with them a tourniquet -- a medical device used to stop bleeding -- in case of further attacks, state media reported.
Adding to tensions, a Ukrainian drone struck a petrol depot in central Russia early Friday and set it alight, the latest in a series of targeted strikes by Kyiv on Russia's energy infrastructure, authorities said.
- 'Five-storey building' hit -
In Ukraine, where Moscow has made creeping gains across the frontline all this year, Russian troops captured the village of Rozdolivka, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Bakhmut, according to the Russian defence ministry.
Ukraine has suffered months of ammunition shortages, hampering its ability to defend itself on the battlefield, but on Friday soldiers told AFP the situation was improving.
"It's become better over the past month and it keeps getting better, at least for 155mm calibre artillery shells," a Ukrainian sergeant using the call sign "Luntik" told AFP.
He said that in the first quarter of the year ammunitions in his unit had been strictly rationed to "six shells every 24 hours" while the limit today was "up to 40 per day".
Russian shelling near the frontline in the east and northeast killed at least five people, four of whom were in the town of New York in the Donetsk region, regional authorities said.
A Russian shell in New York destroyed the "entrance of a five-storey building, killing four civilians aged 43 to 76. A 39-year-old woman and her eight-year-old daughter were injured," the Donetsk region prosecutor's office said.
In Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region, where Moscow launched a major ground assault in May, Russian shelling in the morning killed a 56-year-old woman in a border village, the interior ministry said.
- Plan to end conflict -
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile said Friday he was drawing up a "comprehensive plan" for how Kyiv believes the conflict should end.
There are no public talks ongoing between Ukraine and Russia and, based on public statements by Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the two sides appear as far apart as ever when it comes to the terms of a potential peace settlement.
But talk of a deal has mounted in the third year of the fighting, with Zelensky having hosted a major international summit in Switzerland earlier this month to rally support for Ukraine's position.
"It is very important for us to show a plan to end the war that will be supported by the majority of the world," Zelensky said Friday.
"This is the diplomatic route we are working on," he said at a press conference in Kyiv alongside Slovenian President Natasa Pirc Musar.
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