Russia announced this week that a failed assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin had gone down at the Kremlin. Putin was not on the premises at the time that two drones landed on the presidential headquarters. He was being manly and vigorous somewhere else, and if it sound like I’m being a little too flippant, you might be correct. However, the footage of those drones has caused pause among experts, while Russia is already accusing the U.S. of being involved in helping Ukraine do the deed.
At issue, though, is the fact that Putin loves his propaganda and has even recently staged pseudo-celebratory welcomes for when he visits Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. As well, The Daily Beast points towards chatter that suggests how odd it is that residents reported drone sightings that were ignored by Russian security forces, basically because it was nighttime and a few days away from Victory Day celebrations. Here’s more:
The drones the Kremlin says were intended to assassinate President Vladimir Putin in a late-night attack were reported by residents outside Moscow before they struck–but security forces shrugged off the sightings, according to a new report. The Russian Telegram channel Baza reports that residents of the Moscow region outside the capital phoned emergency services to warn about the incoming drones, but police dismissed the calls as unfounded panic.
Newsweek provides details from the experts at the Institute Of War, who believe that there’s no way that Russia could have simply dropped the ball on any legitimate attack on the Kremlin, and their conclusion is that this incident was a set up to justify more propaganda:
The ISW report asserts that “several indicators” suggest the attack was staged, noting that Russia recently enhanced “domestic air defense capabilities” while arguing it was “extremely unlikely” that Ukrainian drones could have thwarted “multiple layers of air defense” and be destroyed “in a way that provided spectacular imagery caught nicely on camera.”
Naturally, the ISW believes that Putin is laying groundwork for a larger draft by making Russian citizens fear that the war has arrived at their doorstep. That sounds terribly realistic, given that Putin has already carried out multiple massive drafts and faced backlash that would only increase without drastic measures, like a fabrication. Additionally, CNN has provided a full-on analysis (which is worth reading) of all the odd circumstances that don’t add up regarding the claimed assassination attempt.