Russian hawks demand brutal revenge after drone hits Kremlin
Security breach is a serious warning to Putin, whether it was a real assassination attempt or just for show
AN EXPLOSIVE drone struck the Kremlin yesterday, provoking furious demands for revenge in Russia as Ukraine denied plotting to kill Vladimir Putin at his Moscow residence.
The Kremlin’s security chief called for the “physical elimination” of Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, following the assault on Russia’s seat of power.
However, Mr Zelensky gave a blunt denial of responsibility for the drone. “We don’t attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our own territory,” he said at a news conference in Helsinki. Western officials appeared unclear on the drone’s source, as the US secretary of state admitted: “We simply don’t know.”
Antony Blinken added: “I would take anything coming out of the Kremlin with a very large shaker of salt.”
The attack appeared to raise serious questions over Moscow’s air defences. But Kyiv suggested the attack may have been “staged” by Moscow to justify further strikes on Ukraine.
The images of a projectile detonating over the Kremlin caused fury among Russian officials and ultra-nationalist activists, and raised the spectre of a further escalation in the war in Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, the head of Russia’s security council and a former Russian president who has become one of the country’s most outspoken hawks, insisted Mr Zelensky must be assassinated in retaliation.
“After today’s terrorist attack, there are no options left other than the physical elimination of Zelensky and his cabal,” Mr Medvedev said.
The drone struck the dome of the Senate Palace, which houses Mr Putin’s living quarters even though he spends most of his time at his out-of-town residence of Novo-ogaryovo.
The Kremlin said it viewed it as a “terrorist act and an attempt on the life of the president”. The drone footage was released as the Kremlin announced it had detained Ukrainian special forces teams plotting attacks in Crimea
Mikhailo Podolyak, one of Mr Zelensky’s closest advisers, said: “It’s all predictable. Russia is clearly preparing a large-scale terrorist attack. That’s why it first detains a large allegedly subversive group in Crimea. And then it demonstrates ‘drones over the Kremlin’.”
Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines and across the border in Russia have become more frequent and highprofile in recent months.
The US had previously talked Ukrainian officials out of launching an attack on Moscow on the anniversary of the war, according to Pentagon leaks.
Ukrainian drone strikes also appear to have become more sophisticated in recent months.
The Kremlin attack comes at a critical point in the war, with Ukraine said to be preparing a counter-offensive in the south and east of the country.
Russian forces have become largely bogged down around the bitter fight for the city of Bakhmut.
On Monday, Russian strikes on Ukraine’s southern Kherson region killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens in shelling of a supermarket, a railway station and a petrol station.
In possible signs that preparations for a counter-attack are being stepped up, Kherson announced a 58-hour curfew from tomorrow evening. Similar long curfews have been used in the past to facilitate troop and arms movements.
The US yesterday announced it was sending Ukraine about $300 million in additional military aid, including an enormous amount of artillery rounds, howitzers, air-to-ground rockets and ammunition.
‘It’s all predictable. Russia is clearly preparing a large-scale terrorist attack’
THE Spassky tower clock showed 02.27 and the Kremlin was bathed in its customary illumination when the first drone arrived.
Cruising out of the Moscow night, it smashed into the rotunda of the 18th century Senate Palace, which holds Vladimir Putin’s office. Later footage showed that it started a small fire on the roof. Sixteen minutes later, a second drone buzzed straight across Red Square and exploded just above the rotunda, scattering debris over the fortress compound.
Two people climbing the gantry on the rotunda ducked as it came in, but appeared to survive the explosion unhurt. Shortly afterwards, the flood lights went out, leaving an unusual gap in Moscow’s night-time skyline. The only casualty of yesterday’s drone strike was the pride of the Federal Guards Service (FSO), the Russian agency charged with guarding Putin and securing the Kremlin.
But the unprecedented attack on the very symbol of Russian statehood sent shockwaves well beyond Moscow.
This was an “attempt on the president’s life”, and an “act of terrorism”, the Kremlin press service announced. Putin was not in the Kremlin and was unharmed, it added.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s upper House, demanded Russia take revenge by employing weapons that were capable of “stopping and destroying the Kyiv terrorist regime”.
“The last time the enemy bombed Moscow was in 1942,” noted Igor Girkin, the one-time Kremlin-backed warlord turned dour critic of the Russian war effort.
The Ukrainian denials came as quickly. “We don’t attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory. We are defending our villages and cities,” Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said on a visit to Finland.
Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Mr Zelensky, said: “It’s all predictable. Russia is clearly preparing a large-scale terrorist attack.
“That’s why it first detains a large allegedly subversive group in Crimea. And then it demonstrates “drones over the Kremlin”.
The Russian government’s claim that this was an attempt to kill Putin should be treated with scepticism.
He very rarely visits the Kremlin these days and almost never spends the night, so the chances of catching him at home were minimal.
Although his offices are meant to be in the Senate Palace, the building that was hit, both of the drones exploded harmlessly on or above the roof rather than targeting a window.
In other words, it looks more like a demonstration of capability – a way of taunting the Russian government – than a serious assassination attempt. And that would be well within Ukraine’s abilities.
The Russian government announced the strike early on yesterday afternoon, about 12 hours after it took place.
But that appears to have been a response to footage beginning to pick up traction on social media, rather than a managed release of information.
The first report came within minutes of explosions taking place.
“Neighbours from the House on the Embankment report a strong explosion and smoke in the centre around 2.30. A few minutes later there was another bang,” wrote the Neighbours of Yakimanka, a neighbourhood gossip channel, at 2.37am.
At 3.16am, it cited witnesses describing “the strength of the explosion like a roll of thunder”, and said other residents “saw sparks in the sky and people with torches near the Kremlin wall after the bangs. The illumination of the Kremlin wall and the Kremlin embankment is now switched off ”. The House
on the Embankment is a large apartment complex across the river from the Kremlin, and the channel posted footage of smoke rising from the Kremlin filmed from there.
Later, footage from other angles, some of it showing Spassky tower clock, confirmed the timing of the attack. At least one video appeared to be of a security camera monitor filmed in turn by someone holding a mobile phone, but it was unclear who decided to release it to social media.
It is not clear where the drones came from. In theory, the red walls of the Kremlin enclose one the most secure triangles of airspace anywhere in the world. In reality, like any inner-city government facility, it is a security officers’ nightmare.
The walls may be high, but anyone can buy a ticket to access the citadel (though Putin’s residence and office are strictly out of bounds for tourists). And it is right in the middle of the biggest city in Europe.
It is bound on three sides by a clogged six-lane highway, a park popular with families and young couples, and Red Square, awash from dawn till dusk with tourists, wedding parties, and ordinary Muscovites hurrying to and from work.
It is quite feasible that the drones were launched from somewhere quite close by, possibly in Moscow itself.
Ukraine has shown an ability to send special forces operators deep behind Russian lines, and launching from inside the city would negate the need to penetrate the Russian capital’s air defences.
It would, however, require some way to overcome the powerful electronic jamming devices the
FSO security service uses to protect the Kremlin from just such an attack, these are hardly secret. In 2016, Moscow drivers noticed navigation apps going haywire as they drove past the fortress. A Rusboth sian tech blogger who investigated concluded the Kremlin was jamming civilian GPS to stop quadcopters flying near it.
Cynics, and others accustomed to the Kremlin’s relationship with the truth, will note that the people best placed to penetrate those defences are in the FSO itself.
Mr Podolyak suggested the Kremlin wanted to justify some future “terror” strike on Ukraine, but there are other ways such a brazen attack could be useful to Putin.
A purported attempt to kill the Russian president, in a strike on the very symbol of Russian statehood itself, could help justify a second wave of conscription for the war effort.
The Kremlin has previously avoided that step because of the risk of a public backlash.
There is no evidence to support that version of events.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been the catalyst of a profound revolution in drone warfare.
Both sides deploy unmanned aerial vehicles in vast numbers for reconnaissance and strike, and have rapidly expanded their capabilities.
Devices on the battlefield range from small commercial quadcopters modified to drop grenades, to “kamikaze” loitering munitions and sophisticated, longrange attack drones designed to fly far into enemy territory. The resulting arms race has also produced ingenious counter measures on sides. The Russians in particular have a reputation for signal jamming, GPS spoofing or even taking control of enemy drones using a rival signal.
But it is the Ukrainians who seem to have the edge in offensive creativity – and not just in the air.
In October, they attacked Russia’s Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol harbour using drone boats powered by modified jet-ski engines.
On Feb 28, an aerial drone attack deep into Russia itself blew up a fuel depot in Krasnodar region and forced St Petersburg to close its airspace.
One drone made it as far as th Moscow region, although it narrowly missed the gas facility it was aiming for.
In March an unnamed defence industry source told the magazine that the Ukrainian army was to receive a “significant and high-tech capacity” in coming weeks, but did not elaborate.
The Ukrainian government has a policy of not officially commenting on strikes inside Russian territory.
But late on Tuesday night Andriy Yermak tweeted an emoji of a rocket.
He may have been referring to an overnight strike on an oil facility in southern Russia.
And buried in Mr Podolyak’s Twitter statement was a line that could only be described as a knowing wink.
“The emergence of unidentified unmanned aerial vehicles at energy facilities or on Kremlin’s territory can only indicate the guerrilla activities of local resistance forces,” he wrote.
“As you know, drones can be bought at any military store…”
That was a jab at Putin’s wellpublicised lie that the unmarked troops who seized Crimea in 2014 were concerned locals who got their guns from an army surplus shop.
None of that is proof of Ukrainian involvement.
Minutes after the strike in Moscow was reported yesterday afternoon, air raid sirens sounded across Kyiv.
The all clear sounded shortly afterwards, but the Ukrainian capital will be on heightened alert for weeks.
False flag or not, the Kremlin will seek a very public revenge.
‘The emergence of unidentified aerial vehicles indicate guerrilla activities of local resistance forces’