Russia has accused Ukraine of targeting Vladimir Putin’s residence using two drones. An accusation that kyiv has denied. Thursday, the Kremlin implicated the United States.
Drones and lots of questions. Russia claimed on Wednesday, May 3, to have shot down two Ukrainian drones above the Kremlin in Moscow. In one of the videos broadcast by Russian media on social networks, we see a device explode in the middle of the night in a sheaf of flames at the top, surmounted by a Russian flag, of the dome of the Senate Palace, one of the main buildings of the Kremlin.
>> Find the latest information on the war in Ukraine in our live
Immediately, Moscow accused kyiv of trying to assassinate Vladimir Putin. Former President Dmitry Medvedev went further and called on Telegram to “the physical elimination of [Volodymyr] Zelensky and his clique”. But Ukraine has denied any involvement. “We did not attack Putin”, retorted the Ukrainian president. Thursday, lhe Russian presidency then accused the United States of having ordered this alleged attack by Ukrainian drones in which kyiv denies any involvement.
These alleged attacks come a few days before the important military celebrations of May 9 in Russia, and at a time when kyiv says it is ready to launch a vast counter-offensive. Franceinfo takes stock of the explanations envisaged after these events.
An unlikely assassination attempt
For Moscow, the drones were sent by kyiv with the aim of killing the Russian president. But this explanation is rejected by several specialists. “It’s quite grotesque. Ukrainians know that Putin does not sleep in the Kremlin, but the strike took place around 2 a.m.”, underlines on franceinfo Pierre Servent, specialist in defense issues.
“The Kremlin is a considerable territorial hold, which represents more than one hectare of land. It would take a rain of anti-bunker bombs to hope to kill anyone inside.”
Pierre Servent, specialist in defense issuesat franceinfo
“Vladimir Putin has never been a target neither of Ukrainians nor of Western services”assures General Jérôme Pellistrandi on BFMTV. “Eliminating a head of state is something that has existed, but which is quite rare in contemporary conflicts”nuance Colonel Michel Goya, on BFMTV. “It is not at all in the interest of the Ukrainian government to carry out this kind of attack. Given the means that have apparently been used, it is not very effective”, evokes on LCI General Bernard Norlain.
“Ukrainians – like all Westerners – would prefer that he be tried by the International Criminal Court which has indicted him for war crimes. So all this seems fanciful”, adds Nicolas Tenzer, specialist in international and security issues, to franceinfo.
Drones sent from Ukraine?
For several specialists, however, the drones could have been sent from Ukraine. The country has the technical and technological capabilities to carry out long-distance strikes as far as Moscow. “It could be the [modèle de] UJ-22 drone from Ukraine, or a Chinese-made Mugin-5, which has obviously been used by Ukraine before”, while the Ukrainian PD-1 drone is another possibility, told AFP Samuel Bendett, an analyst in the Russia studies program at the American research institute Center for Naval Analyzes (CNA). The question remains to know “where the drones have been launched from at the moment”says the researcher.
Dominika Kunertova, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) think tank at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, also agrees. “Extend the distance [potentielle] strike has been Ukraine’s main focus on systems innovation [d’armement] unmanned”, she told AFP. And according to the researcher, “one of the main strategic advantages of using a drone” for such attacks is the possibility of denying being behind them, since it is difficult “to trace the attack to Ukraine and thus avoid a direct escalation in the conflict”.
A possibility ruled out by Pierre Servent: “The drone seems too small to have left Ukraine”. However, the drones used by the Ukrainians at the end of 2022 in Russia “were drones of a large dimension and especially with important explosive charges.”
“It’s hard to imagine a drone covering so many kilometers without having been intercepted, and a fortiori in a place as sensitive as the Kremlin.”
Nicolas Tenzer, specialist in defense issuesat franceinfo
Pierre Servent believes that these drones can be a “special operation of Ukrainian secret agents”conducted in conjunction with “local complicity”. The goal would then be to symbolically strike the place of Russian power a few days before the May 9 celebrations.
Moscow suspected of false flag attack
Does Russia have an interest in presenting itself as the victim of an attack? This is affirmed by one of the Ukrainian President’s advisers, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, who accused Moscow of “staging” to justify “a major terrorist attack in Ukraine”. A hypothesis also considered by Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, for whom this would make it possible to “to make Ukraine look like a reckless country or to remobilize Russian public opinion”, he explains to the Associated Press (in English).
“If this is a Moscow false flag operation, it smacks of desperation.”
James Nixey, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House.at Associated Press
Other specialists suspect a Russian-mounted operation, as Moscow reacted quickly after the explosions and released drone footage from surveillance cameras near the Kremlin. Russia “wants us to see” this event, slice with AFP Sergej Sumlenny, expert in questions on Eastern Europe.
According to a note (in English) from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Russian authorities have recently taken steps to strengthen Russian air defense, including in Moscow. “Had the attack not been staged internally, it would have been a surprise event,” And “the official Russian response would have been much more disorganized”believes the American think tank.
However, the Russian leaders have all provided the same explanation for these alleged attacks, which was not the case for other events, such as the future counter-offensive announced by Ukraine. However, this maneuver would have a “psychological cost”according to Pierre Servent, who adds: “The Russians are sending the message that they are unable to intercept drones in a normally hyper-secure area.”
Internal tensions in Russia mentioned
Pierre Servent puts forward a final hypothesis: an operation linked to the internal struggles in Russian power, in particular “Bolshevik Nationalist Red-Brown”who might have wanted to send a message to Vladimir Putin. “It can also be an exercise launched by people from the FSB or other Russian services to test something”, expresses Nicolas Tenzer cautiously.
In its note, the ISW points out that Russian nationalist bloggers took advantage of the explosion of drones to call for an escalation in the war in Ukraine, despite the lack of Russian military capabilities, denounced by its own forces. These bloggers compared these explosions to the“humiliation” suffered when, as the story goes Le Monde (subscriber article), only one German civilian pilot had flown into Red Square in 1987, despite defensive measures.