Russia has accused Ukraine of attempting to assassinate Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin with a drone. On Wednesday night, two Ukrainian drones were intercepted over the Kremlin in Moscow, the Presidential Office said. Ukraine denied the allegation and suspected Moscow of “staging” the incident.
Moscow described the allegedly attempted drone attack on the Kremlin as a “planned act of terrorism and an assassination attempt” on Putin. The President was unharmed and there were no casualties.
In response, the head of the Russian lower house, Vyacheslav Volodin, called for the government in Kiev to be “destroyed”. There could be “no negotiations” with Zelensky’s government. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for the “physical elimination” of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “and his clique”.
Selenskyj rejected the accusation from Moscow. “We didn’t attack Putin,” he said at a press conference in Helsinki, where he surprisingly traveled on Wednesday. “We are fighting on our territory, we are defending our villages and towns,” said the Ukrainian president. He attended a summit of Nordic countries in the Finnish capital.
The Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podoliak also assured that Ukraine had “nothing to do with drone attacks on the Kremlin”. Such reports, “staged” by Russia, represented an attempt to prepare the way for a “large-scale terrorist attack on Ukraine” at the information level.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken strongly doubted the accusations from Moscow. He could not confirm the reports, said Blinken in Washington. However, he would “take everything that comes out of the Kremlin with great reservation”.
For days there have been increasing reports of attacks and activities from the Russian-Ukrainian border area that indicate acts of sabotage. According to the regional administration, a fuel depot caught fire in the Russian village of Volna near the bridge to the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula on Wednesday night. There were no dead or injured.
A fuel depot in the strategically important port city of Sevastopol in Crimea caught fire on Saturday after a suspected drone attack. In mid-April, the authorities installed by Russia in Crimea canceled the May 9 commemoration ceremonies there on the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany for security reasons.
In Moscow, however, the traditional end-of-war parade on Red Square will take place as planned, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. Putin will take part.
