Has Putin said that (yet)?
What is he actually saying? And, more importantly, and how is this drone attack being publicized–both in official press conferences, and also on social media, among average Russians?
Don’t we have some Russian speakers here at the Dope? Is anybody able to follow Russian facebook-type sites (Telegram?)
Ukrainian air defense seem to be able to shoot down the majority of Russian drones that attack them. There have been various reports of drones being sighted in the Moscow area in recent weeks and months, as well reports of crashed drones. Russia have also ramped up their air defense around Moscow, so they should be on a high level of alertness.
The camera shake video appears to have been recorded by phone from a security camera video feed. I think all the videos of the drone attack are probably security cameras, so I’m not sure there’s anything suspicious there.
Meanwhile, here’s a map showing Ukraine’s targeting of Russian fuel resources in Russia and Russian-occupied territory, presumably to reduce Russian mobility for the upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive:
I don’t know if Putin himself has made that statement, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov has been quite clear in his accusations. Here’s one story on it, but there are many others:
No, the Kremlin says the Ukrainians did it with the support of the US. Not the same thing.
Here’s a live cam of the US Capitol building. There are plenty more with a quick google search. Do you really think Russia doesn’t have a dozen cameras focused on every major landmark at any given time?
Honestly, I had no idea there were live cams directed at landmarks anywhere, but if that’s a not uncommon practice, it takes a bit of wind out of the false flag arguments. As I said, I’m skeptical about a false flag attack, as an attack on the capital displays either military weakness or increasing domestic dissent and doesn’t really align with the narrative Putin has been selling for over a year now.
The video from Kremlin looks as if it’s recorded with a handheld camera. If they have some Kremlin-cam, they would probably have better pictures.
The videos with camera shake, suggesting handheld camera, appear to be from after the first drone strike. I don’t think it suspicious that mobile phone cameras would be trained on the Kremlin to capture footage of the second drone attack fifteen minutes later.
You are probably right about that.
I’m not sure why that would be the case. If it WAS a false flag, why wouldn’t Russia direct the attack to a place they knew they had surveillance on and could get footage? And if it just happened to be a passerby with a cellphone camera, why would that be hard to believe in the center of Russia’s most photographed epicenters, regardless of time?
Ukraine has been acquiring cardboard UAVs from 'straya, as has been previously posted. Not only are they cost-effective, but I believe I read somewhere that the cardboard presents a more favorable radar profile. The limited range, though, would probably rule them out for this incident.
I retain some skepticism that Putin would have ordered a drone attack on the Kremlin as a false flag. Putin is all about projecting strength, and there is probably no other place in Russia that could be successfully targeted that could make him look weaker than the building in the Kremlin that houses the Russian presidential administration. I feel that there would be other means of achieving the same “rally 'round the flag” effect against “terrorists” that don’t make Putin look weak personally, such as false flag car or apartment bombings.
If a US official is saying that the Ukrainians have assured the US that they didn’t do it, I’m inclined to think they weren’t involved.
Anti-Putin Russian dissidents is a possibility. They reportedly exist, and the flag on the president’s office building would be the sort of symbolic target one might expect them to make a demonstration against.
Another possibility is that it could be rogue pro-war elements within the Russian establishment and/or intelligence/military. There is a segment of Russian society that feels that Putin is not doing enough to win the war and that he should escalate things, including through possible use of nuclear weapons, and fully mobilize the country for war. So it could potentially have been a Russian false flag without Putin’s knowledge.
Particularly when the “devastating terror attack” that’s supposed to “rally the populace” looks like it could have been pulled off by a couple of drone hobbyists with access to fireworks.
Apparently, a Ukrainian TB2 Bayraktar drone was lost control over, possibly jammed by Russians. It reportedly entered restricted airspace over Kyiv and was shot down.
Has anybody suggested rebellious teenagers yet?
I don’t see how it could possibly have been a serious attack on the Kremlin. Somebody counting coup, maybe – the version where you’re making a point of not killing.
Russia is full of R/C and drone enthusiasts, just like Ukraine. Any number of them could have attached an improvised munition to a drone to do what we saw. Many peoole in Russia hate Vlad, and maybe someone thought that hitting the Kremlin might bring the war home to him a bit.
Early in the war a little old lady took down a Russian drone with a pickle jar, if I recall correctly. Apparently, the Ukrainians are good at knocking drones out of the sky, with or without modern tech. Russia…? Not so good, hence the videos of Russians soldiers huddling in trenches just before a drone-carried grenade drops on them.
While I grant that you’re correct about air defenses existing around Moscow, there is still the possibility of these drones having been launched IN Moscow, perhaps quite near the Kremlin, which would avoid at least some of the air defenses around the city.
I’m not sure that Putin’s narrative actually aligns with reality, though. What the Kremlin says and what the Kremlin does are often two different things.
To be fair, we’re only seeing the videos where the drones don’t get knocked out of the air before delivering their payload. There may well have been plenty of knockdowns whose videos end up getting stored in /dev/null on the Ukrainian propaganda cloud servers.
Oddly worded headline. Is it a Russian assault against Kherson or a Ukrainian assault against Russian forces? The article implies a Ukrainian counter assault.
Those only work, in provoking a rally round the flag effect, if the car or apartment bomb actually kill a lot of people.
I know Putin is a bad man and all, but, just maybe, he would prefer not to murder lots of Russian civilians, at least in Russia.
And I don’t understand the idea that a dramatic win makes you weak. The Kremlin was saved!