Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has told the BBC that attacking Moscow made no sense for Ukraine but would help Russia justify attacks on civilian targets.
The statement from Putin’s office pointed to a significant response. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said it was time to “physically eliminate Zelenskiy and his clique”, while parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called for the use of “weapons capable of stopping and destroying the Kyiv terrorist regime”.
According to the ISW, influential nationalist bloggers have called on Moscow to escalate the war, while criticising the Kremlin for allowing Ukraine to cross multiple Russian “red lines” with no adequate retaliation.
However, the thinktank’s analysis also shows that bloggers with closer Kremlin affiliations have been advocating against military escalation.
“This messaging from pro-Kremlin milbloggers could support the assessment that the purpose of this false-flag attack was to justify increased mobilisation measures rather than any sort of escalation,” the ISW says.
In response to the Kremlin drone attack a number of experts have accused Russia of staging a false-flag event, an operation carried out with the intent of blaming an opponent for it.
The strike comes at a potential turning point in the war, as Ukraine prepares to mount a long-anticipated counteroffensive.
Western analysts have said Moscow’s response in the aftermath of the strike was highly coordinated, and questioned why no reports of explosions emerged prior to the Kremlin’s official announcement, 12 hours after the explosion was said to have taken place.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US thinktank, said Russia likely staged the attack in order to emphasise the existential threat to Russia’s citizens and to prepare for wider mobilisation.
Here is what we know about the Kremlin drone strike.
Zelenskiy has said his only concern is to defend Ukraine’s own cities and villages against the Russian invasion. “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory,” Ukraine’s president said.
In the past, Ukraine has launched drone strikes inside Russia and Crimea, although it typically does not claim responsibility for them. A strike on the Kremlin would be its most audacious to date.
Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the president was not in the Kremlin at the time of the attack. Mick Mulroy, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defence and CIA officer, told the BBC that Ukraine tracks Putin’s movements closely so it was likely they knew he was not in the Kremlin at the time.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said anything coming from the Kremlin should be taken with a “very large shaker of salt”.
Russia and China founded the SCO in 2001 as a counterweight to US alliances across east Asia to the Indian Ocean. The group includes the four Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where Russia enjoys economic and political sway.
Workers give final touches to the media center set up for the meeting of the Shanghai cooperation Organization (SCO) council of foreign ministers, in Goa, India, Wednesday, 3 May 2023. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP “Moscow would have a strong interest in ensuring that it continues to play a big enough role in the SCO so it doesn’t risk losing ground in one of the few regional groupings where it can comfortably engage with other member states,” Kugelman told the AP.
The SCO countries have either voted to abstain or not vote at all in past UN resolutions condemning Russia. Both India and China have offered to contribute towards peace efforts in Ukraine, but have stopped short of directly accusing Moscow.
Russia is unlikely to face backlash over its war in Ukraine at an upcoming meeting of Central Asian foreign ministers, the Shanghai cooperation Organization, and instead could flex its influence with the regional group, AP reports.
India won’t have to contend with an East-West split over the war in Europe, which caused frustration for New Delhi as the chair for this year’s meetings of the Group of 20 leading economies, and the country will be looking to secure its own interests in the region, especially as Russia relies more deeply on India’s rival China.
“Russia needs friends. And in the SCO, it finds no enemies and quite a few friends,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute.
Policemen stand guard at the tall tin wall created on the beach to cordon off the area for the meeting of the Shanghai cooperation Organization (SCO) council of foreign ministers, in Goa, India, Wednesday, 3 May 2023. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP No casualties in Kyiv in Thursday morning attack
Kyiv’s city state administration has posted a summary of this morning’s attacks on Telegram, saying that there were no casualties or “destruction of residential facilities or infrastructure”.
Another air attack in Kyiv. For the capital, it is already the third of four days in May! Our city has not felt such a dense intensity of attacks since the beginning of this year! Tonight, the aggressor again carried out a complex airstrike on the capital. (In the capital, the alarm lasted for more than 3.5 hours.) The Russians attacked Kyiv with the use of Shahed-type barrage ammunition and missiles, probably of the ballistic type. (The final type of missiles used will be determined only after the examination of the remains). According to preliminary information, in the airspace of Kyiv by our air defense forces, all enemy missiles and UAVs were destroyed! The data is being verified. According to operational reports, there were no casualties among the civilian population and no destruction of residential facilities or infrastructure.
'All clear' in Kyiv - city officials
City officials in Kyiv have given the “all clear”, several hours after air raid sirens first started sounding.
“Air siren all clear! Please keep an eye on reports and return to shelter if the siren sounds again,” Kyiv city’s state administration wrote on Telegram.
In case you missed it, here is our full report on the Kremlin drone strike:
Cherkasy’s air raid alarms have ceased, according to local authorities.
Oil refinery fire extinguished
Emergency services say they have extinguished the fire at a large oil refinery in Russia two hours after it was hit in a drone attack, TASS news agency reported early on Thursday.
TASS said the incident occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region.
A day earlier, a fuel depot further to the west caught on fire near a bridge linking Russia’s mainland with the occupied Crimea peninsula.
“A second turbulent night for our emergency services,” Krasnodar governor Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram, adding that tanks with oil products were on fire at the Ilsky refinery.
There were no casualties, he said, citing preliminary reports and he did not say how the fire started.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, says that Moscow may use the Kremlin attack, which it says Russia “likely” staged itself, to limit or cancel 9 May Victory Day events, “actions that would probably augment the information effort framing the war in Ukraine as directly threatening Russian observance of revered historical events”.
The ISW said in its latest update:
The Kremlin may use the strike to justify either canceling or further limiting May 9th celebrations, actions that would probably augment the information effort framing the war in Ukraine as directly threatening Russian observance of revered historical events. ISW has previously assessed that Russia is employing an array of measures to frame the war in Ukraine as existential to Russia’s domestic audience and to prepare for wider societal mobilization.”
The Kyiv independent reports that the regions that heard air raid alarms ringing early this morning include, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia.
Air raid alarms have ceased in southern Ukraine, the defence force says on Telegram, but, “Anxiety remains in the north-central part of Ukraine.”
Kherson has stopped its air raid alarm, according to the region’s state administration on Telegram.
Zelenskiy has arrived in the Netherlands – local media
Dutch media are reporting that Zelensky arrived at Amsterdam’s airport late Wednesday, with a trip to the international criminal court in The Hague on his agenda.
Dutch news agency ANP said Zelensky, making his first visit to the Netherlands, landed at Schiphol airport after attending a Nordic summit in Helsinki.
ANP published a dark photo of an aircraft, claiming it was the Dutch government plane probably carrying the Ukrainian leader.
The Ukrainian president is expected to deliver a speech in The Hague entitled “No peace without justice for Ukraine”, according to public broadcaster NOS.
Russia 'likely staged' Kremlin drone attack, says Institute for the Study of War
The US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War says that the drone attack on the Kremlin was “likely staged” by Russia and that “several indicators suggest that the strike was internally conducted and purposefully staged”.
Russia blamed the attack on Ukraine, an assertion Zelenskiy was quick to deny.
The ISW says that among the indicators are that:
Russian authorities have recently taken steps to increase Russian domestic air defense capabilities, including within Moscow itself, and it is therefore extremely unlikely that two drones could have penetrated multiple layers of air defense and detonated or been shot down just over the heart of the Kremlin in a way that provided spectacular imagery caught nicely on camera.
And that:
The Kremlin’s immediate, coherent, and coordinated response to the incident suggests that the attack was internally prepared in such a way that its intended political effects outweigh its embarrassment.
The US Ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, has just tweeted saying, “Russia’s next attacks on Ukrainian cities right now, after yesterday’s terrible attack on the civilian population in Kherson. As @SecBlinken said, Ukraine is under daily attack, and not only its incredibly courageous armed forces, but its citizens – men, women and children – are under daily attack, being bombed in their own homes, apartments, in the middle of the streets, killing children, uniting families.”
Explosions reported in Zaporizhzhia
Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne reports explosions in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia. Yuri Malashko, the head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, said on Telegram that anti-aircraft defences were at work.
Here is a map showing air raid sirens are sounding this morning across most of eastern Ukraine.