According to the Russian media, namely Tass, RT and Sputnik News, two drones attacked President Vladimir Putin’s living quarters in the Kremlin. He wasn’t home the evening of May 3rd, so the attack, if one was actually launched, could not achieve its aim, namely killing Putin.
As things now stand, the Kremlin has produced a couple of videos —one of them showing what looks like a drone that explodes perhaps 50 feet above the ground. That video also, oddly, shows two individuals – some have said they are soldiers – ascending one of the buildings, which has a dome-like structure which is identified as the Senate Palace Dome. They are climbing up as the drone comes down.
If the video is authentic, we don’t know what they were doing there in the middle of the night.
Were they carrying a MANPADS, a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rocket, to the top to intercept incoming drones? There is no video evidence that they are carrying anything.
Could they have been spotters, told to get a clear view of the sky around the Kremlin? That is possible, if there was early warning of the attack. In any case, they were late to the party. And, since the video ends after the explosion, we don’t know what happened to these guys.
Moscow, by now, has one of the most elaborate aircraft and missile defense systems in the world, perhaps rivaling Israel’s layered air defenses. It would not be surprising if the Russians have copied what the Israelis are doing but with significantly different equipment. An integrated air defense network should have been able to intercept any drone attack well before it closed in on the Kremlin enclave.
There is a story, floating around the blogosphere, that the attack on the Kremlin was some kind of inside job, in which a team of Ukrainian mercenaries launched the drones very close to the Kremlin walls. In this case, the elaborate air defenses around the city of Moscow would have been effectively circumvented, and early detection of a drone attack would not have been possible.
The Russians say that the drones were (finally) stopped by electronic means. This suggests that not only were the drones’ electronics jammed but that, at least in the case of the one that exploded, the Russians were able to cause the drone’s payload to explode. Is it possible? The answer is affirmative since the Russians not only have jammers, but they have very powerful jammers, perhaps strong enough to trigger a drone’s explosive package.
Reports from Russia also say that the drones that were destroyed fell to the ground in thousands of pieces. In other words, conveniently perhaps, there is no hard evidence proving the attack took place.
The Ukrainian government has denied any involvement in a drone attack on the Kremlin aimed at Putin. Conveniently, Zelensky is in Finland on a state visit. Wisely, or maybe prudently, he has postponed his return to Ukraine. One presumes he doesn’t want to be around when the bombs fall on his underground bunker.
But another way of looking at Zelensky’s decision to extend his visit to Finland is he wanted to allow time for a special operation against Putin to play out. If it was successful, he could return home a hero. If it failed, he could find other things to do.
US officials, similarly, said that if there was a drone attack Washington did not receive advance warning from Ukraine. This is a convenient way of avoiding responsibility, at least until there is contrary evidence. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Russian claim that there was an attack should be taken with “a very large shaker of salt.”
The Russians say they will respond to the Kremlin attack at a time and place of their own choosing. That announcement actually adds a scintilla of credibility to Russia’s claims the attack happened. If the Russians could track down the team that launched the drones, that would really be something – but don’t hold your breath.
Stephen Bryen is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and at the Yorktown Institute. This article was originally published on the author’s Weapons and Strategy Substack. It is republished here with permission. Follow Stephen Bryen on Twitter at @stevebryen