Russia Says Ukraine Launched a "Planned Terrorist Attack" at the Kremlin, Attempting to Kill Putin; Russian Spokesman Says the US is Behind It

Remember when Biden told donors (not the public, just his donors) that we were at the closest we've ever been to Armageddon...?

Yeah. About that.

Russia calls the failed drone strike a "planned terrorist attack" -- and blames the US.

The video first appeared in the early hours of Wednesday on Russian social media. The Kremlin was slow to react, eventually releasing a statement calling it a "planned terrorist attack," a deliberate attempt by Ukraine to assassinate Putin, but presenting no evidence.

The president was not injured, the Kremlin stressed, threatening that "Russia reserves the right to take countermeasures, wherever and whenever it deems appropriate."

The denial from Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky was swift: "We don't attack Putin or Moscow; we fight on our territory."

A former senior US diplomat called that significant: after several previous mysterious attacks inside Russia, Ukrainian officials have wryly denied knowing anything about it.

"This," the former diplomat said, "was definitive."

If the apparent drone attack itself was surreal, questions about how it happened -- and what could come next -- were even more fantastical.

Here comes CNN's spin: Russia attacked itself.

When Russia isn't "interfering in US elections," they're blowing up their own infrastructure, according to CNN.

Would Russia carry out the attack itself? In 1999, just months before Putin was elected president for the first time, Russia was hit with a wave of apartment bombings that killed more than 300 people and which then-prime minister Putin cited to justify launching the Second Chechen War.

His tough approach helped him win the presidency, but suspicion still lingers about who really was behind the bombings. With the apparent drone attacks, no one died, and the Kremlin's vaunted security looked feeble, but it gives the Kremlin an opportunity to rally Russians to support Putin against those who would harm him.

Ukraine officials said the attacks might be exploited by Russia to launch even more vicious attacks on Ukraine, including "terrorist" attacks.

The White House denied having any involvement in the attack.

But then, the White House denied any involvement in the Nord Stream attack, too.

The White House on Wednesday denied any involvement in an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin, after Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Washington of guiding Ukraine to launch the assault.

"We had nothing to do with this," said John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, on MSNBC.

"Peskov is just lying there, pure and simple," he added.

Russia alleges that Ukraine carried out a "terrorist attack" overnight Tuesday into Wednesday with two drones, aiming to kill President Vladimir Putin, a charge which Kyiv has denied.

Throughout its more than year-long offensive in Ukraine, Moscow has maintained that Kyiv is taking orders from Washington -- accusing the West of leading a war against Russia by proxy.

Peskov, Putin's longtime press secretary, said earlier Wednesday that "decisions on such attacks are not made in Kyiv, but in Washington."

"Kyiv only does what it is told to do," he added.

Both Ukraine and Russia report new drone attacks today.

Kyiv and Moscow reported drone attacks Thursday including two that sparked fires in Russian oil refineries, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited The Hague to lobby for more support.

Zelensky's surprise visit to meet top officials of the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, came a day after Moscow accused Kyiv of a drone attack on the Kremlin.

Russia has accused Ukraine of trying to kill Putin, but Zelensky denied his country was behind the Kremlin strike.

...

The Ukrainian air force said Thursday that Russia had fired 24 attack drones overnight, of which 18 were downed. Authorities said there were no casualties.

"The invaders launched up to 24 Shahed-136/131 attack drones... The Air Force of Ukraine, in cooperation with other air defence units, shot down 18 attack drones," the air force said on Telegram.

Sergiy Popko, the head of the city of Kyiv's military administration, said that "all enemy missiles and UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) were destroyed over Kyiv by air defence forces".

Popko said it was the third day of attempted strikes on Kyiv in May.

"Our city has not experienced such intensity of strikes since the beginning of this year," he said, adding that debris from the downed drones had fallen on different parts of the city but there were no casualties.

Russia on Thursday said a drone attack in the southern Krasnodar region's Ilsky settlement sparked a blaze at an oil refinery.

Krasnodar Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said the refinery fire had been localised to a 400-square-metre (4,300-square-foot) area and was quickly extinguished by emergency services.

Shortly afterwards the governor of Russia's Rostov region, which also borders Ukraine, said a drone had hit a local refinery near the village of Kiselevka and caused an explosion and a fire.

posted by Ace at 05:30 PM

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