Russia accuses Ukraine of bid to kill Putin with drones

Russia has accused Ukraine of a failed try to assassinate President Vladimir Putin in a drone assault on the Kremlin citadel in Moscow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zekenskiy stated his nation had nothing to do with the reported incident.

“We do not assault Putin, or Moscow, we battle on our territory,” Zelenskiy advised a press convention throughout a go to to Finland, alluding to Russian forces that swept into Ukraine final 12 months.

A senior aide to Zelenskiy known as the accusation an indication that the Kremlin was planning a serious new assault on Ukraine.

Shortly after the Kremlin announcement, Ukraine reported alerts for air strikes over the capital Kyiv and different cities.

Russia stated that two unmanned aerial automobiles have been aimed on the Kremlin.

“Because of well timed actions taken by the navy and particular providers with using radar warfare techniques, the units have been put out of motion,” a Kremlin assertion stated.

“We regard these actions as a deliberate terrorist act and an try on the president’s life, carried out on the eve of Victory Day, the Might 9 Parade, at which the presence of overseas company can also be deliberate.”

Fragments of drones have been scattered within the Kremlin grounds however there have been no accidents or harm, it stated.

Putin himself was secure.

The RIA information company stated he had not been within the Kremlin on the time, and was engaged on Wednesday at his Novo Ogaryovo residence outdoors Moscow.

“The Russian aspect reserves the suitable to take retaliatory measures the place and when it sees match,” the Kremlin added.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of Russia’s Safety Council, stated the incident “leaves us no possibility however to bodily get rid of Zelenskiy and his clique”.

Two of quite a few movies revealed on Russian social media channels present two objects flying on the identical trajectory towards one of many highest factors within the Kremlin complicated, the dome of the Senate.

The primary appeared to be destroyed with little greater than a puff of smoke, the second appeared to depart blazing wreckage on the dome.

Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the movies.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak stated the drone accusation, together with an announcement that Russia had caught suspected saboteurs in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea area, “clearly signifies the preparation of a giant scale terrorist provocation by Russia within the coming days”.

Elsewhere, oil depots have been ablaze in each southern Russia and Ukraine, as either side escalated a drone warfare forward of Ukraine’s promised spring counteroffensive towards Russian forces.

Scores of firefighters battled an enormous conflagration that Russian authorities additionally blamed on a Ukrainian drone crashing into an oil terminal on Russia’s aspect of its bridge to Crimea.

A gas depot in Ukraine was ablaze after a suspected Russian drone strike on the central metropolis of Kropyvnytskyi.

An administrative constructing in Ukraine’s southern Dnipropetrovsk area was additionally hit by a drone and set ablaze.