It’s still unclear who flew the two drones that crashed into a Kremlin building on May 3. There’s a range of possibilities: Ukrainians working for the government in Kyiv from inside Russia; pro-Ukrainian, anti-Putin groups, such as the people believed to have killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin; or even Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, in a false flag operation.
The drones crashed inside the Kremlin walls when Putin was least likely to be there.
Referring to what he called an “alleged drone attack at the Kremlin,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in a Thursday news conference, “We’re still trying to gather information about what happened, and we just don’t have conclusive evidence one way or the other.”
What we do know is this: The Russian government’s reaction to the drones suggests Putin and his propagandists are desperate to mobilize that country’s support for their barbaric, but failing, invasion of Ukraine. That’s the real news here.
NBC News has viewed two videos filmed from the same perspective, which appear to show that two objects flew over the Kremlin approximately 15 minutes apart. The second object seems to strike the building causing a small fire. It was unclear where the objects were launched from and whether they exploded or were shot down.
Immediately after video footage of one of the drone crashes was released, state-controlled media in Russia said it was a Ukrainian drone on a mission to assassinate Putin.
Here’s why we should be skeptical. First, it’s unlikely that the drones, which didn’t even appear to have damaged the flagpole they crashed into, had the capacity to do major damage, let alone kill someone inside the Kremlin. More significantly, Putin does not live in the Kremlin. For decades, he has lived at a compound an hour outside Moscow. Everyone knows this. (While working at the White House and then serving as the U.S. ambassador to Russia, I…
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