Moscow on Wednesday accused kyiv of attacking the Kremlin with two drones in an apparent attempt to assassinate President Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, visiting Finland, denied any involvement of his country in the act. “We are not attacking Putin or Moscow,” he stated.
“We fight on our territory. We are defending our towns and cities,” Zelenski emphasized at a press conference.
Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mikhailo Podoliak, said the Russian claims could provide a pretext for Russia to “justify massive attacks on Ukrainian cities, civilian populations and infrastructure facilities.”
An attack on the headquarters of the Russian political world is absolutely unprecedented. It didn’t even happen during World War II. Napoleon, although he approached the wall of the imposing fortress, did not attack it either before the iron Russian defense.
Putin was not in the Kremlin at the time, but at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence on the outskirts of Moscow, his spokesman Dmitri Peskov told Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti.
No Western media outlet with a presence in Moscow was able to independently verify the aforementioned attack. According to the Russian authorities it happened during the night, but they have presented evidence. Questions were also raised about why it took hours for the Kremlin to report the incident and why videos surfaced later in the day. The videos did not identify their authors.
A video posted overnight on a local Moscow news Telegram channel, filmed from across the river from the Kremlin, appeared to show smoke billowing over the buildings. Nor has it been possible to determine its veracity. According to text accompanying the images, residents of a nearby apartment building reported hearing explosions and seeing smoke around 2:30 a.m.
Another video circulating on social media, which appears to have been taken from across Red Square, appears to show the moment a drone explodes in a fiery flash over the roof of the Senate Palace in the Kremlin, near a flagpole with the Russian tricolor flag, with debris falling on the roof. It was also not possible to independently verify it, CNN reported.
The Kremlin said Russian military and security forces shot down the drones before they could strike. No one was injured, he added. His official website said the debris from the drones landed on the Kremlin grounds without damage.
The Pentagon is investigating those alleged attacks, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
US intelligence officials are also investigating the Russian claims, but have not reached any conclusions yet, according to a US official familiar with the matter.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in Washington at an event to mark World Press Freedom Day, said he had seen the reports but “I cannot validate them in any way. We just don’t know.”
He added: “I would take anything that came out of the Kremlin with great skepticism. We’ll see what the facts are and it’s really hard to comment or speculate on this without really knowing what the facts are.”
The alleged drone attack would be a significant escalation in the 14-month conflict, with Ukraine taking the war to the heart of Russian power.
Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, told French channel France24: “It certainly wasn’t an attempt to assassinate Putin, because he doesn’t sleep on the roof and probably never will sleep in the Kremlin.”
He also added that it is too early to prove or disprove whether it was a Russian attempt “either to make Ukraine look reckless or to cheer up Russian public opinion” or whether it was a Ukrainian operation to embarrass Russia.
James Nixey, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the British think tank Chatham Housesaid that “the two most likely possibilities are a ‘warning shot’ by Kiev or a bogus operation by Moscow designed to justify more intense attacks in Ukraine or more recruitment.”
If it was a warning shot from kyiv, then it was “another shocking security lapse by the Russian state,” he stressed.
“If this is a bogus operation by Moscow, then it smacks of desperation,” Nixey added. “And it’s a high-risk strategy that he’s probably exposed to, considering how poor his trade appears to be.”
The alleged attack sparked calls in Russia from pro-Kremlin figures for assassinations of top leaders in Ukraine.
The Kremlin claimed the attack was planned to disrupt Victory Day, which Russia celebrates in Red Square on May 9 to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
Before the news about the alleged attack broke, the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, prohibited the use of drones in the Russian capital except those launched by the authorities. He did not give any reason for the ban. He said that he would only prevent the “illegal use of drones that can hinder the work of law enforcement.”
Zelensky traveled to Finland in search of increased firepower for his armed forces. In recent months both Ukraine and Russia have experienced ammunition shortages after a winter of long-range bombing and missile attacks.
kyiv has been pressing its allies to demand more as officials consider when to start driving Russian forces out of Ukrainian territory.
Zelensky said the Ukrainian counter-offensive will come “very soon.”
