If I was parsing post-drone photos of the Kremlin dome correctly, the “damage” is minimal at best (a few messed-up roof tiles was all the damage apparent to me). Reads to me like theater for propaganda purposes by people who didn’t want to do any actual damage in the process of putting on their show of victimhood and being in danger.
And just why was someone taking video of the Kremlin in the wee hours, at just the right time and angle to show the purported attack?
According to this article, a Johns Hopkins professor AKA expert says that Ponomarev can sometimes engage in “fantasy” when it comes to the existence of anti-Putin forces in Russia:
Maybe the word fantasy is unfair. But I don’t understand why anti-regime forces would do something requiring such major planning and effort when they couldn’t have thought Putin would be there, and the chances of getting any specific villain was low.
Also, I can’t get out of my mind that getting so close, and then utterly failing, fits extremely well with the false flag hypothesis.
So, fantasy freedom fighter tries to latch onto the story for his own ends? Makes sense. Still think the likeliest answer is false flag, anyway.
I think the video is of the second drone.
That actually does make sense. That and the guys on the roof. There were actually two drones, and the video is of the second. The first was burning on the opposite side of the dome (visible in other videos). It had struck about 15 minutes earlier, long enough for some people to get up there to put out the fire. Also not so long that people wouldn’t still be pointing cameras at the dome.
Good point.
Here is the post in this thread that shows videos of both drones. The video of the first one is by a fixed surveillance camera.
Best collection of actual information on the attack is here:
Goes through all the videos and picks them apart. Does not engage in any speculation.
The dome, or the flag on the dome, appear to have been the target. I’m not an explosives expert, but, given the video of the roof of the dome burning, I’m guessing it might have been incendiary material. If it was not the Russians, then it’s very embarrassing that two drones coming from different directions, fifteen minutes apart, were able to penetrate to the most secure location in Russia.
What air defense doing?
ISW provides some thoughtful analysis of the Kremlin attack. There’s more information at the link.
I speculate Russia will soon draft even more people to fight this war.
Link Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 3, 2023 | Institute for the Study of War
Maybe Putin looked at his role model’s playbook and decided to continue his parody by creating a Reichstag fire-esque situation.
Or it could have been orchestrated by the Wagner Group. Vlad has been pissing them off lately. All we have to do is play Ride of the Valkyries to the video and see if it lines up.
US official says Ukrainians deny it was them:
Except when the populace is lukewarm on the subject… This might be a very awkward attempt to get the common Russia to rally 'round the flag and get enthused about this war. The meatgrinder always needs more meat.
Of course, it could have been someone else, for some other reason.
Imagine if someone drove a large airplane into the side of the Pentagon - how did the US react?
I’m not sure there’s a lot of sophistication required. Drones are small, slow, and not very noticeable compared to larger aircraft, although obviously the larger you get the less this is true. If you can launch from somewhere relatively nearby it’s probably not that hard to do, and you’ll already be inside some of the air defenses if you can launch from close to the Kremlin itself.
Ever notice how “air defense” isn’t set off by random birds flying around?
Although they look different and sound different many drones are about the same size as birds on radar, which doesn’t actually see or hear anything the way people do. I don’t know the details on the exact size and speed of the drones used in this event, but small enough and slow enough their radar profile could be ambiguous enough that defenses weren’t triggered until someone could actually see one of the drones.
Yes, this has some scary implications for everyone everywhere. The saving grace is that the smaller drones most likely to get away with this sort of thing also have a very limited ability to carry anything that would do damage.
Larger unmanned vehicles piloted from the other side of the planet carrying serious munitions - yes, those require “sophistication”. Not the smaller ones used by hobbyists. Which latter have been common in this conflict. Sure, they might carry a grenade, but while a grenade is deadly to a soft, squishy human it won’t have much effect on a large building.
So they were caught with their Pantsir down? (Sorry, I know we’ve covered air defense, but it was circling in my head and I had to get it out.)
The Kremlin thinks the Ukrainians did it with the support of the U.S.
I did assume it was something approaching a military drone that could actually make the distance from Ukraine. But checking news reports, I find no mention of a drone model name or number. Are you thinking that Putin claims the Ukrainians tried to kill him with an expensive toy I could buy on Amazon?
If that is it, do we even know that there was an explosive in the drone? Might the bright light have all been from the exploisive in whatever shot it down? If a Russian provocation, using a picture-taking hobbyist gadget would reduce the chance of damaging a historic Kremlin building.
This is more like someone landing a small plane on the White House lawn post 911.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/15/politics/aircraft-lands-on-capitol-grounds/index.html
Yes. This occurred to me as well. Having the camera centered at just the right moment and angle to capture the drone at that moment does seem rather…serendipitous.
As I explained above, I’m still skeptical of a false flag for the reasons already mentioned, but can see how one could find plausibility in the false flag theory. Personally, I suspect the perpetrators are Russian dissidents, and not Ukraine.
The fact that Russia has blamed the U.S. along with Ukraine for the drone “attack” makes me believe even more it’s a false-flag operation.
There’s not a good end to this war for Russia, and Putin is doing whatever he can to maintain support and control. Blaming the U.S. for an attack on the Kremlin lets him double down on his “existential threat” mantra to the Russian populace: “See, those terrible Americans are attacking us! We have to defeat them, and the best way to do that is by obliterating Ukraine! That’s why I’ve decided to draft another 500,000 ‘volunteers.’”