Russia has accused Ukraine of attempting to use drones to assassinate Vladimir Putin. Overnight on Tuesday, two drones were spotted above the Kremlin. In footage shared on social media, one of them appeared to explode in the air near the dome of the residential area of the capitol building.
In the aftermath, Moscow said it was able to disable the drones, and blamed Kyiv for the attack. Ukraine denied any role in the incident and suggested Russia is planning its own terrorist acts.
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“Tonight, the Kyiv regime made an attempt to strike with unmanned aerial vehicles on the Kremlin residence of the President of the Russian Federation,” the Kremlin said in a statement. “Two unmanned aerial vehicles were aimed at the Kremlin. As a result of timely actions taken by the military and special services using radar warfare systems, the devices were disabled. State media reported that Putin was not in the building at the time of the attack.
Footage of the alleged attack was on Telegram hours before Moscow made a statement. The most dramatic footage showed an object flying towards the domed top of the Grand Kremlin Palace as viewed from the Moskva River. The object appears to fly behind a flagpole and explode, littering debris on the roof. Video from the other side shows that the explosion created a small fire on the roof.
“We have no information about the so-called night attacks on the Kremlin, however, as President Zelensky has said numerous times, Ukraine directs all available means and forces at liberating its own territories, and not on attacking foreign territories,” Zelensky spokesman Serhiy Nykyforov told news outlets when asked for comment on the attack.
The alleged drone attack comes just days before one of the biggest holidays in Russia, Victory Day, a May 9 parade celebrating the end of World War II. Artwork and infrastructure for the parade is visible in footage of the drone exploding over the Grand Kremlin Palace. Moscow banned the flights of all drones above the city in the aftermath of the attack.
The alleged assassination attempt comes as Kyiv is preparing its counteroffensive to push Russia out of its country following more than a year of brutal war. It’s also not the only high profile attack on Russian infrastructure in recent days. On April 29, a Ukrainian drone strike set a Russian fuel storage facility on fire in Crimea. Twice this week explosions have derailed trains carrying supplies for Russian soldiers. Early Wednesday morning, as the Kremlin issued statements about the drone attack on the palace, another fuel depot caught fire in Crimea.
The Kremlin called the drone attacks on its capitol an act of terrorism. “The Russian side reserves the right to take retaliatory measures where and when it sees fit,” it said in a statement.
“The wording of the terrorist state are especially surprising,” Nykyforov said. “A terror act is the destruction of the blocks of flats in Dnipro and Uman or a missile attack on the queue at the railway station in Kramatorsk, and many other tragedies.”
Zelensky advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said that Russia was “clearly preparing a large-scale terrorist attack.”
