The U.S. cannot yet confirm the Kremlin’s allegation that Ukraine was behind a foiled assassination plot targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin claimed on Wednesday that it downed two Ukrainian drones over the Kremlin, an accusation Ukrainian officials have rejected. Putin was not in the Kremlin at the time of the supposed attack. Russian officials also said the military disabled the drones using its electronic warfare systems, and the debris scattered around the Kremlin, with no injuries, per state media outlet Tass.
RUSSIA CLAIMS PUTIN SURVIVED ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT BY UKRAINE
“I have seen the reports. I can’t in any way validate them,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday during a Washington Post event. “We simply don’t know. Second, I would take anything coming out of the Kremlin with a very large shaker of salt.
“We’ll see what the facts are. And it’s really hard to comment or speculate on this without really knowing what the facts are,” Blinken added.
He was asked if the U.S. would criticize Ukraine for launching attacks in Russian territory, and responded, “These are decisions for Ukraine to make about how it’s going to defend itself, how it’s going to get its territory back, how it’s going to restore its territorial integrity, and sovereignty.”
Another U.S. official told the Washington Examiner, “We are looking into the report but aren’t able to confirm it or validate its authenticity.”
The Kremlin has threatened to retaliate for the alleged plot, saying in their announcement, “Russia reserves the right to take retaliatory measures whenever and wherever it sees fit.”
A spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied knowledge of the attack.
“Russia is clearly preparing a large-scale terrorist attack,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on social media. “That’s why it first detains a large allegedly subversive group in Crimea. And then it demonstrates ‘drones over the Kremlin.’ First of all, Ukraine wages an exclusively defensive war and does not attack targets on the territory of the Russian Federation. What for? This does not solve any military issue. But it gives RF grounds to justify its attacks on civilians.”
Russian officials have accused Ukraine of incendiary actions previously, though U.S. and Western officials have said the Kremlin likes to accuse others of what it’s about to do. They also say Russia has often times staged provocation to justify a reaction.
“Russia often accuses others of what they intend to do themselves,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in October. “We have seen this pattern before — from Syria to Ukraine. Russia must not use false pretexts for further escalation. The world is watching closely.”
In March 2022, for example, Russian officials alleged Ukraine was plotting to use a dirty bomb and pin the blame on them, though a team of international monitors found no evidence to support the claim, the United Nations nuclear watchdog announced in November following inspections at three sites.
President Joe Biden emphasized in October that “it would be a serious, serious mistake” for Russia to use a dirty bomb due to the pattern of Russia using false flag operations to justify its actions as retaliatory.
There has been an uptick in attacks by both Russian and Ukraine away from the front lines of the war, which is in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, ahead of Ukraine’s highly anticipated counterattack to liberate cities and towns currently under Russian occupation.
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Within the last week, Russian forces have continued to target Ukrainian cities with rockets and missiles, including killing more than 20 people when a Russian rocket hit an apartment building in central Ukraine. Two Ukrainian drones hit a Russian oil depot in Sevastopol, Crimea, resulting in a massive fire.
The White House revealed earlier this week that Russia’s armed forces have probably suffered around 100,000 casualties in Bakhmut since December, 20,000 of which lost their lives while the remaining were wounded in combat. The Kremlin has denied these tallies.
