Drone warfare, of great tactical importance in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the practice of deception, common in all wars, have reached the Kremlin. Moscow accused Kyiv yesterday, Wednesday, of attacking the heart of the Russian capital with the aim of killing Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kyiv government denied the accusations and blamed Russia for increasing tension ahead of May 9 and the Victory Day military parade.
The Russian presidency assured on its website that the attack occurred in the early hours of May 3. Two drones heading for the Kremlin were destroyed by Moscow’s defenses and their remains fell into the walled medieval compound. There were no casualties or damage.
Putin’s spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, later assured that the Russian leader was not in the Kremlin at the time, but in Novo-Ogariovo, his residence on the outskirts of Moscow, where he continued to work without changing his schedule. “We consider that these actions are a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the life of the president,” says the note released by Moscow, which reserved the “right to retaliate where and when it deems appropriate.”
An unverified video circulated on social media showing what appeared to be smoke billowing out of the Kremlin overnight. A second seemed to show fire on the roof of an 18th century building, the Kremlin Senate.
As throughout the conflict, the Ukrainian and Russian versions totally differ, in an attempt to also win the information and propaganda war.
Ukraine flatly denied the accusations of its enemy. Mikhail Podoliak, adviser to the Ukrainian Presidency, wrote on Twitter that “the presence of unidentified UAVs in energy infrastructures or in the Kremlin can only indicate guerrilla activities by local resistance forces. (…) Something is happening in FR (Russian Federation), but definitely without drones from Ukraine over the Kremlin, â€he added.
President Zelensky, who was visiting Finland, denied any involvement. “We are not attacking Putin, or Moscow, we are fighting on our territory,” he asserted.
The Kyiv government has never claimed responsibility for attacks and sabotage on Russian territory, not even on the Crimean peninsula, despite evidence that these can only come from Ukraine. Its Western allies fear that this could escalate the conflict and even lead to a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. That is why they insist that Ukraine can use the weapons they are supplied exclusively to liberate the territories occupied by Russia in the conflict that began when Putin ordered his army to enter the neighboring country on February 24, 2022. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
If Moscow’s version is true, the drone attack on the Kremlin would be the latest in a series of sabotage and coups against military targets and energy facilities in various regions of Russia, which have accelerated in recent days. This could be explained by the upcoming Victory Day celebration in Russia or by the announcements that Ukraine already has its counteroffensive ready.
In the same early morning of Wednesday, a drone hit a fuel depot in the Krasnodar Krai, in southern Russia, very close to the Kerch bridge, which connects mainland Russia with the Crimean peninsula.
Two freight trains, one on Monday and the other on Tuesday, were derailed by the explosion of bombs on the tracks in Briansk Oblast, which borders Ukraine.
On Saturday, a drone strike caused a fire in a fuel depot in the port of Sevastopol, the base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, in Crimea. And on Sunday there was an explosion at a high-voltage pylon in Leningrad Oblast, which surrounds St. Petersburg.
Moscow holds the military parade on May 9, when Russia will celebrate the 78th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Hitler’s Germany in World War II. But five regions, in addition to Crimea, have suspended it “for security reasons.”
The arrival of drones and deception in the Kremlin (wherever they come from) aroused the most bellicose voices in Moscow, allies of Putin. Viacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the Duma, called for “weapons capable of stopping and destroying the terrorist regime in Kyiv.” And former President Dmitry Medvedev said the incident “leaves us no choice but to physically eliminate Zelensky and his cabal.”
