Throughout its history Russia, and the Soviet Union before it, has used “false flag” operations, carrying out aggressive actions while blaming its enemies but, for more than a year, the Putin regime has been blaming Ukraine, NATO, and the United States for the war in Ukraine.ĭoes it really need another excuse to try to kill Zelensky? Ukraine officials said the attacks might be exploited by Russia to launch even more vicious attacks on Ukraine, including “terrorist” attacks. With the apparent drone attacks, no one died, and the Kremlin’s vaunted security looked feeble, but it gives the Kremlin an opportunity to rally Russians to support Putin against those who would harm him. His tough approach helped him win the presidency, but suspicion still lingers about who really was behind the bombings. Would Russia carry out the attack itself? In 1999, just months before Putin was elected president for the first time, Russia was hit with a wave of apartment bombings that killed more than 300 people and which then-prime minister Putin cited to justify launching the Second Chechen War. Russian state media, for the most part, are sticking to the precise wording of the Kremlin statement on the attack, as well as broadcasting daytime pictures of the Kremlin showing things are “back to normal” and that the president is hard at work – all signs Russian propagandists are having difficulty finding the right “message” to explain how their president was almost “assassinated.” If these were drones from Ukraine, how did they evade detection? Did Moscow’s defenses fail? Even more embarrassingly for the Kremlin, how did the drones get so close to the Kremlin? Russia’s border with Ukraine is protected as well. The Kremlin is one of the most heavily guarded government complexes in the world. Months ago, Russian authorities began mounting air-defense installations on Defense Ministry and administrative buildings across Moscow. If the apparent drone attack itself was surreal, questions about how it happened – and what could come next – were even more fantastical.

“This,” the former diplomat said, “was definitive.” The denial from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was swift: “We don’t attack Putin or Moscow we fight on our territory.”Ī former senior US diplomat called that significant: after several previous mysterious attacks inside Russia, Ukrainian officials have wryly denied knowing anything about it. The president was not injured, the Kremlin stressed, threatening that “ Russia reserves the right to take countermeasures, wherever and whenever it deems appropriate.”

The Kremlin was slow to react, eventually releasing a statement calling it a “ planned terrorist attack,” a deliberate attempt by Ukraine to assassinate Putin, but presenting no evidence. The video first appeared in the early hours of Wednesday on Russian social media. Suddenly, just as one passes the Russian flag flying atop the building, it explodes, raining fiery shards down on the roof. What appear to be two drones, streaking across the night sky in Moscow, head straight for the Kremlin, on target to hit the historic Senate Palace, the official residence of Vladimir Putin. At first glance, it looks like a sci-fi movie.

Sky rider drone