If the Kremlin makes a statement, you know that the opposite is the truth.
The Kremlin’s instant accusation that Ukraine was responsible for the drone attack in Moscow on the night of May 3 / 4, when they could not possibly know anything is yet another manifestation of its endemic lying.
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President Volodymyr Zelensky and numerous other Ukrainian officials have forcefully stated that Ukraine was not involved. It seems very likely that it was a Russian false flag operation, although it could have been done by independent Russian partisans, who are accused of blowing up one factory after another all-around Russia.
Most revealingly is the, frankly risible, claim by the Kremlin that the attack was an attempt on Putin's life. Everyone knows that Putin lives in his bunker in Novoe Ogarevo, outside Moscow. Ukrainian intelligence would not make this most amateurish of mistakes.
Another revealing fact is that according to the video that circulated on the internet two men were climbing the roof of the Senate when the "missile" struck and they were unperturbed. Why were two men on the roof of a Kremlin building at 2:30 am in the middle of the night? Could they have been firemen sent up to extinguish any fire because the Kremlin command knew this was about to happen?
They were right as the "bombs" were little more than fireworks. In the aftermath, no damage was visible on the dome of the Senate building, where Putin’s Kremlin office is located.
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If this was actually a hostile act, we would have expected the usual wild manhunt and the arrest of the usual suspects – there has been no evidence of this. That suggests that the actual culprits were known as with the apartment block bombings of September 1999, which were all too obviously instigated by the FSB, then under the leadership of Nikolai Patrushev, Putin’s old friend and now his National Security Secretary.
The eminent Russia researchers and authors John Dunlop, David Satter, Yuri Felshtinsky, and Alexander Litvinenko (later murdered by the FSB) have all written credible books about these accommodation bombings, that lay all the blame on Putin and Patrushev, who have remained truly enamored with false flag operations since that success.
The Russian military has now become famous for its incompetence, but they have three Panshir air defense systems nearby at the Ministry of Defense buildings. Why were they not activated? Presumably, they were not supposed to be activated, which says it all.
I lived in Moscow in May 1987 (as a Swedish diplomat), when the 18-year-old German Mathias Rust freely crossed the USSR border and landed his small private plane on the Red Square. Two days later a furious President Mikhail Gorbachev sacked the minister of defense and head of air defense. Ten days later, Anton Gerashchenko recalls that 34 officers and generals were held accountable. So far, however, the Kremlin has not uttered any criticism against the air defense. Why? Was it not supposed to act?
Instead, immediately after the drone attacks, hardliners such as former President Dmitry Medvedev and Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called for the assassination of Ukrainian leaders. The now-deranged Medvedev led the choir: “After today’s terrorist attack, there are no options left other than the physical elimination of Zelensky and his clique.”
British intelligence claims that Russia has tried to kill Zelensky at least ten times, but that is difficult if you are too corrupt even to carry out murder. If they had been serious, they would have called for the sacking of the incompetent Russian air defense officers, which they did not.
If you carry out a false flag operation you are supposed to follow up, as if it was genuine, to give you at least marginal credibility, but the Kremlin stooges are so full of themselves that they did not even bother to try to be credible.
How could they instantly know that Ukraine was behind the attack? How could they believe that anybody would be so dumb as to expect Putin in the Kremlin at night? Why were two men on the dome of the Senate Building in the middle of the night? Why were the buildings not damaged? Why did they not seek and arrest any suspect culprits? Why hasn’t any responsible air defense generals been sacked? How pathetic, Putin!
Anders Åslund is the author of “Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The Path from market Economy to Kleptpcracy.”
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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