Kremlin accuses US of directing alleged drone attack on Putin

The Washington Post

KYIV, Ukraine — The Kremlin spokesman on Thursday directly accused the United States of ordering what Moscow has alleged was an attempted assassination of President Vladimir Putin with two drones that were sent to attack the Russian president’s official residence. John Kirby, the spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, said Dmitry Peskov “is just lying.”

Ukrainian officials denied any role in the alleged attack on the Kremlin, and some suggested Russia had staged it to create a pretext for escalating its war.

“We know very well that decisions about such actions, about such terrorist attacks, are made not in Kyiv, but in Washington, and Kyiv does what it is told,” Peskov told reporters Thursday.

Kirby said that it was still not clear to Washington what had happened, but he bluntly rebutted Peskov’s claim. “I can assure you that there was no involvement by the United States in this, whatever it was,” he said during an appearance on MSNBC. “We had nothing to do with this. Peskov is just lying there, pure and simple.”

Peskov said the denials by the U.S. and Ukrainian officials of their involvement “are absolutely ridiculous.”

He added, “We know that often it is not even Kyiv that determines the targets, but Washington determines them and then brings them to Kyiv so that Kyiv implements them. Whether or not to divide all of this by two is up to them, but Washington should know that we know this clearly.”

Putin was not in the Kremlin at the time of the alleged strike on the Senate Palace, which contains his official residence within the walled compound in the center of Moscow. But Peskov said that Putin was working there Thursday and that protective measures, including air defenses, would be strengthened.

See ATTACK Page 16