- Kremlin claims drone attack from Kyiv
Russia’s and Ukraine’s crisis took another dimension yesterday, with Moscow accusing Ukraine of trying to carry out drone strikes on the Kremlin overnight to assassinate President Vladimir Putin.
Russia’s vow to retaliate that action purpotedly carried out by Ukraine, which he denied, will escalate the war.
The war has affected the economy of many countries in developed and the developing world, causing market crisi, food price hike, among other challenges.
The Kremlin’s press service said Russian air defences shot down two drones attempting to strike Putin’s residence inside the Kremlin walls.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Russia’s air defences intercepted for the first time a U.S.-made JDAM precision-guided bomb fired by Ukraine.
He said: “During the last 24-hour period, air defence capabilities intercepted four HIMARS rockets and a U.S.-made JDAM smart air bomb,” state news agency TASS reported.
The Russian government warned of eventual retaliation for the alleged plot.
“The Russian side reserves the right to take retaliatory measures where and when it sees fit,” the Kremlin said.
Now Russian politician, Dmitry Medvedev, yesterday called for the ‘elimination’ of Zelenskyy, claiming that Russia had been left with no other option but to eliminate the president of Ukraine and his ‘clique’.
Medvedev was president of Russia between 2008 and 2012, he’s the guy Putin used to get around Russia’s term limits on the presidency.
It’s hard to see how this represents much of a shift in Russian policy towards Zelenskyy, considering that right from the beginning of their invasion of Ukraine, there have been hit squads tasked with assassinating the Ukrainian president.
Mercenaries tasked with assassinating Zelenskyy have been operating since the beginning of Russia’s invasion.
Yan Gagin, who serves as an adviser to the Russian-installed administration in the occupied parts of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, said the Ukrainian military had employed a U.S.-made JDAM guided bomb in the area of Kurdyumivka, a village on the southern approaches to the city of Bakhmut, which the Russian forces have targeted in a major winter offensive.
Ukrainian officials debunk allegation
But, Ukraine’s government denied any involvement, accusing Moscow of using the incident as a pretext for escalating attacks in Ukraine.
“We regard these actions as a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the life of the president,” the Kremlin said.
Putin was not in the building at the time of the alleged attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
The Kremlin said no one was harmed and there was no material damage as a result of the falling fragments of destroyed drones.
Footage shared on social media, which could not be independently verified, allegedly showed an explosion above the Kremlin.
Moscow has accused Ukraine of carrying out previous attacks and sabotage in other parts of Russia, which Ukraine denies.
“We are not attacking Putin or Moscow. We are fighting on our territory, defending our villages and cities,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters during a visit to Helsinki yesterday. “They will invent escalatory schemes every day.”
A Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, suggested on Twitter it could have been the work of “local resistance forces.” Podolyak alleged the Kremlin is using this incident as a pretext to justify large-scale attacks on civilians in Ukraine.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington could not confirm the reports of an attack and that any such accounts from the Kremlin should be viewed with heavy skepticism, according to The Washington Post.
Analysts also cautioned against considering such a drone attack, even if it proves true, as an attempt to assassinate Putin.
What is Joint Direct Attack Munitions or JDAM?
The Joint Direct Attack Munitions or JDAM is a low-cost, guided air-to-surface weapon, which uses a global positioning system aided inertial navigation system to guide its 2,000 or 1,000 pound warhead to the target with a high degree of accuracy, according to the US Department of Defense.
Essentially, JDAM is a “guidance tail kit that converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into accurate, adverse weather ‘smart’ munitions,” according to the US Air Force.
The extended range kits (JDAM-ER) triple the striking range from 24 km to roughly 72 km.
The commander of US Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, James Hecker, confirmed in March that the U.S. had delivered JDAM-ER precision-guided bombs to Ukraine as part of the nearly $2 billion military aid package Washington announced end of December which simply listed “precision aerial munitions” without providing details at the time.
Moscow had repeatedly warned of “serious escalation” to the conflict if the U.S. supplied Ukraine with long-range aerial weapon capabilities. Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened last June that should Washington arm Kyiv with such aerial weapons systems and munitions, Moscow would “strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting,” without naming the targets he was referring to.
