Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has ruffled feathers amongst US officials following a statement accusing the US of being behind an attack on Moscow. Wednesday morning, two drones fired on Moscow’s Kremlin Citadel before being disabled. There were no casualties as a result of the attack.
Initially, the Kremlin blamed Ukraine and President Zelenskyy before changing its focus to US involvement. The drone strike is being characterized, by the Kremlin, as an attempt on President Putin’s life.
Zelensky was quick to deny involvement, stating as much to a TV crew during a trip to Finland (Part of Zelenskyy’s rally for a special tribunal to hold Putin accountable for war crimes)“We don’t attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory. We’re defending our villages and cities. We don’t have enough weapons for these.” Furthermore, Kyiv has stated that it believes the entire situation is essentially a staged attack by the Kremlin itself to justify and escalation against Ukraine and/or the US.
US officials also denied involvement in the attack, claiming to have no prior knowledge of any attack on the Kremlin. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken went as far as to say that one should take anything stated by the Kremlin with a “large shaker of salt”.
Early Thursday, Peskov doubled down on the narrative that the drone attack was the result of Ukraine and/or US malicious intent, stating, “Attempts to disown this, both in Kyiv and in Washington, are, of course, absolutely ridiculous. We know very well that decisions about such actions, about such terrorist attacks, are made not in Kyiv but in Washington.”
Multiple US officials weighed in on the attack, mainly echoing Secretary Blinken, as well as Lt General Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who agreed that footage of the drone attack also suggested that the two drones were not equipped to do much damage. National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby said to MSNBC that the US does not encourage or enable Ukraine to strike on Russian soil, further stating they “certainly don’t dictate the terms by which they defend themselves or the operations they conduct.”
