On May 4, Russia charged the U.S. with orchestrating a drone strike on the Kremlin the day before that was intended to kill President Vladimir Putin, as relayed by the Russian leader’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov at a press conference.
Peskov said Washington should be aware that Russia “knew” it was choosing the targets and Ukraine was only carrying out American orders.
“We know very well that decisions about such actions about such terrorist attacks are made not in Kiev, but in Washington,” Peskov said.
“And Kiev does what it is told to do. We know that often even the goals themselves are not determined by Kiev, but they are determined in Washington and then taken to Kiev so that Kiev implements them,” he said.
‘A ludicrous claim’
The United States rejected this claim, asserting that Moscow was lying.
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“Obviously, it’s a ludicrous claim,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday, hours after Russia blamed the United States for what it called an attack aimed at killing President Vladimir Putin.
“The United States has nothing to do with it. We don’t even know exactly what happened here, but I can assure you the United States had no role in it whatsoever,” Kirby said on CNN, adding that the U.S. does not recommend Ukraine striking outside its territory and does not endorse attacks on individual leaders.
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According to the Kremlin, electronic defenses foiled two drones from being utilized in the claimed attack on Putin’s apartment inside the fortified Kremlin citadel.
The RIA news agency said Putin had not been in the Kremlin at the time and was working on Wednesday at his Novo Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow.
However, immediately after the strike, Russia called out Ukraine and held it responsible for the incident. Russia has said it reserves the right to retaliate, and hardliners, including former president Dmitry Medvedev, have said it should now “physically eliminate” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Two of the many videos posted on Russian social media platforms depict two objects flying in the same direction toward the Senate dome, one of the highest points in the Kremlin complex.
The second drone seemed to leave burning wreckage on the dome, while the first appeared to be destroyed with little more than a puff of smoke.
Based on analysts, Reuters reported that if the drones had been launched to Moscow by Ukraine, their aim was probably not to kill Putin but rather to send a “messaging” operation to demonstrate that they could breach Russian capital defenses.
“It could be a symbolic strike into the heart of Moscow to demonstrate that basically, no part of European Russia is safe from a Ukrainian attack,” said Samuel Bendett, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C.
No strategic benefit
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday denounced the possibility that Ukraine would have been behind the attack at the Kremlin.
“You know, I can repeat this message and I think it will be at least understandable for everybody. We don’t attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory,” Zelenskiy said.
On that same day, a senior Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak asserted that Kiev had nothing to do with any drone attacks on the Kremlin, that such activities would have no strategic benefit for Kiev, and that they would only encourage Russia to take more drastic measures.
“Of course, Ukraine has nothing to do with drone attacks on the Kremlin. We do not attack the Kremlin because, first of all, it does not resolve any military tasks,” Podolyak said.
On the contrary, the claim that Kiev was behind the attack, according to Podolyak, may be a sign that Moscow is getting ready to launch a significant “terrorist” attack against Ukraine in the coming days.
Reuters contributed to this report.
