On Wednesday, the Russian government said that two drones from Ukraine had attacked the holy of holies in Russia — the ancient Kremlin — and that the U.S. assisted Ukraine in the operation.
Here’s a video released by the Russian government appearing to show something exploding above the Kremlin.
Astonishing footage of last night's drone attack on the Kremlin pic.twitter.com/3rghCHdIed
— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) May 3, 2023
Video analysis is not my forte, so I will not comment on the authenticity of what was recorded. But a drone being able to work its way through two or three layers of air defenses? Not very likely.
Indeed, Western intelligence was skeptical of the drone strike coming from Ukraine from the beginning.
Questions have also been asked as to why the Kremlin waited so long, hours after the incident purportedly took place, to announce it and just why Russian social media channels, usually a-flutter with talk about the war with Ukraine, Russian military strategy and leadership, had been silent about an incident that allegedly took place in full sight (albeit at night) in central Moscow.
Why, too, did videos of the “attack” only appear after the incident and, indeed, who captured the footage — and what prompted them to start filming it just moments before the drones were shown above the Kremlin?
Western officials were also quick to cast doubt over Russia’s claim that Ukraine had made an attempt on the Russian president’s life. For one, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. could not validate Russia’s accusation and that the claim should be taken with a “very large shaker of salt.”
“People should really stop talking about this as an attempted assassination attempt against Putin,” said Mark Galeotti, a political analyst, academic, and author of a number of books on Russia.
Putin “notoriously rarely goes to the Kremlin, let alone stays there overnight, and there were no scheduled early morning meetings or the like there which might make one assume he might be in his (palatial) flat there,” Galeotti noted on Twitter.
Why Russia might have carried out a false flag operation against a nationalistic icon like the Kremlin is self-evident.
The timing of the purported attack, coming just days ahead of the May 9 Victory Day parade commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany, has not gone un-noticed — nor was it meant to, analysts said.
The Kremlin said the drone attack had taken place “on the eve of Victory Day, the May 9th Parade, at which the presence of foreign guests is also planned.”
It added that “the Russian side reserves the right to take retaliatory measures where and when it sees fit” also suggesting the attack could be used to justify an escalation of its aggression against Ukraine.
Those “retaliatory measures” were hinted at by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who called for the “elimination” of Ukraine’s government and cited Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by name.
“After today’s terrorist attack, there are no options left other than the physical elimination of Zelensky and his clique,” Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel, according to TASS.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that Washington had masterminded the attack.
“We are well aware that decisions on such a level of terrorist attacks are made not in Kyiv, but in Washington,” he said in his daily briefing with reporters. “Kyiv only does what it is told to do.”
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby dismissed the allegation as lies.
“I can assure you there was no involvement by the United States. Whatever it was didn’t involve us,” he said in an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” early Thursday. “We had nothing to do with this, so Peskov is just lying there, pure and simple.”
He added that the U.S. did not “encourage or enable” Ukraine to strike Russia.
Right now, Ukraine is waiting for the other shoe to drop. A false flag operation usually precedes a major military move by Russia, and Kyiv can only guess what that might be.
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