In what could be a significant escalation in the 14-month conflict, Russia on Wednesday accused Ukraine of trying to attack the Kremlin with two drones last night in an attempt to assassinate President Vladimir Putin, a charge which Kyiv vehemently rejected.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country fights only on their territory. “Last night, the Kyiv regime attempted to carry out a strike on the Kremlin residence of the President of the Russian Federation with unmanned aerial vehicles,” the Kremlin said in a statement. The President was safe and continued to work with his schedule unchanged, it said.
Debris from the unmanned aerial vehicles fell on the grounds of the seat of Russia’s government but did not cause any damage, the statement further said, adding that Russia reserves the right to take retaliatory measures wherever and whenever is deemed necessary.
The Russian authorities claimed that the military and the security forces disabled the drones before they could strike. “The Kremlin has assessed these actions as a planned terrorist act and an assassination attempt on the president on the eve of Victory Day, the 9 May Parade,” Russia’s state news agency RIA reported.
The RIA further quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Putin wasn’t in his official residence at the time of attack and was working from his Novo-Ogaryovo home.
Ukraine President Zelenskyy, who was on an unannounced visit to Helsinki for talks with the leaders of five Nordic countries, dismissed Moscow’s allegations. “We don’t attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory. We’re defending our villages and cities,” he said.
Ukraine presidential spokesman Mikhaylo Podolyak said his country had “nothing to do” with the alleged attack. “Ukraine does not attack the Kremlin because, firstly, that does not solve any military aims,” he said.
Video footage emerged on some Russian social media sites showed smoke over central Moscow in the early hours of Wednesday. Shortly before the news about the alleged attack broke, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin issued a ban on using drones in the Russian capital, with an exception for drones launched by authorities, reported the Associated Press.
