Drone Attacks on the Kremlin

Who, Why, What and Response?

[Image: a few seconds after one of the drones exploded next to the flag pole. Its flaming debris continue to burn on the dome’s roof. The smoke from the explosion which destroyed and ignited the drone has moved from left to right with the wind.]

Published 2023-05-05

---

Introduction

What's up with this drone attack on the Kremlin? Who did it? Why? What happened? What will be the Russia response?

The first thing to recognize is that its been 82 years since the Kremlin was treatened in this way, says Larry Johnson, citing the Nazi approach to Moscow in December 1941. Their motorcycle scout units got to 15 Kms of Moscow before the Russian counter attack, particularly using their units from Siberia, gave the Nazi's one hell of shellacking. Many Nazi’s died from Siberian soldiers approaching silently on skis, dressed in white, camflaged against the background.

The second thing to note is, as made clear by Alistair Crooke, that Europeans, though being quiet on the topic, are particularly on edge about this. This is a very worrying development for them.

Background

This little essay will offer a response to the questions posed above. To do so requires are quick review of some recent events and history.

On May 2nd 2014 following clashes between protesters against just established coup government in Kiev and counter-protesters in support of the government, the anti-government protesters took refuge in the Trades Union building which is in a park in central Odessa. 48 of those anti coup-government protesters were burned alive. The 9th anniversary of this horrific crime just occurred. The Ukrainian government has yet to bring any criminal preceding to bear against anyone involved in these murders by arson, which should tell you something.

During the month preceding the arson, the new unelected Ukraine government began their Anti-Terror Operation which amounted to creating a civil war between the government and the two oblasts of the Donbas, Lugansk and Donetsk. During the 8 years since, the Ukrainian military waged a war against its own civilians, and since February 2022 the Russian military. During this period the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have shelled hospitals, schools, orphanages, markets, water purification facilities, churches, roads, public gatherings and countless other civilian targets. They have littered Donetsk with small cluster munitions, petal mines, which are internationally illegal, the stocks of which an earlier Ukraine government had agreed to destroy.

The Ukraine's internal security service, the SBU, has been maintaining the Myrotvorets kill list, publishing the names and addresses of persons it doesn't like, including children. When a listed person is assassinated the relevant page on the kill list is marked "Liquidated".

The massacre that occurred in Bucha has not been investigated, which, again, should tell you something. It occurred after Russian forces left the town, and we know this from statements by the local mayor. The massacre of persons was almost certainly performed by the SBU or allied forces.

The Azov, Right Sector and C14 paramilitary units of the AFU are outright Nazis who hate Russians, describing them as "orcs" and are tattooed with Nazi symbology including SS emblems like the Wolfangel.

These are actions of Ukraine government forces, whether overt or covert. These are the types of people we are dealing with.

Asymmetric Warfare

Recently, Darya Dugina was murdered with a car bomb by an operative connected to the SBU. A journalist was killed in a St. Petersburg cafe. Artillery has been fired across the border from Ukraine into Russia at civilian targets, like schools. In the last few days, saboteurs have derailed trains twice in the border Russian region of Bryansk. In recent weeks, several drones have fallen from the sky on the outskirts of Moscow, having run out of fuel. aAfew days ago saboteurs used explosives to damage an electricity pylon on the outskirts of St. Petersburg.

And, let's not forget the truck bomb attack on the Kerch Bridge which was traced to a Ukrainian coordinated attack which used a now dead 'useful idiot'.

These types of action, excluding the shelling into Russia, would be described by politicians as "acts of terror". A military analyst would describe them as "asymmetric warfare".

The history of asymmetric warfare is long. Many would know of the partisans who during WWII blew up train lines to hamper Nazi logistics, among many other types of operations. One of their most important services was the gathering of intelligence; troop movements, logistics etc.. It is extended asymmetric warfare which forced the US to withdraw from Afghanistan.

The partisan units that had been formed and loosely or closely controlled by western intelligence services like the wartime precursors to the CIA (the OSS) and the equivalents from the British and French were maintained in Europe after WWII. The concept was what was known as a "stay-behind army" which could be activated as a collection of partisan groups if Russia invaded western Europe. The groups were maintained not only by contact, but also with equipment including guns, ammunition, explosives etc.. It was one such group which was found responsible for the Bologna train station bombing in 1980, though you're unlikely to find that in the Wikipedia article. A program which oversaw this was known as Operation Gladio. If you're interested, an expert on the topic is Swiss historian Daniele Ganser. Ask him about the Bologna massacre.

Asymmetric warfare is commonly used by the weaker force. Its operations are high-risk high-reward. They can also serve propaganda purposes, to raise the moral of a beleaguered population or force.

The Kremlin Attacks

Two drones are claimed to have been flown into the Kremlin compound. Multiple angles of the footage of one drone and its destruction are available. Finding footage of the second has been problematic. I presume it happened. Judge Napolitan plays multiple video sources of the attack to his guest in each of the three video sources below, if you wish to see some of the video footage.

A part of the official Russian response is, quoting Reuters:

"Two uncrewed aerial vehicles were aimed at the Kremlin. As a result of timely actions taken by the military and special services with the use of radar warfare systems, the devices were put out of action," the presidency said in a statement.

(Interestingly the Reuters 'summary' for the article begins "Russia says it shot down two drones overnight" which is contradicted in the article. Radar warfare, otherwise known as electronic warfare, or electronic counter-measures, is not 'shooting', but I digress.)

Russia also claims that the attacks were by "Kiev" (not naming any part of the government) and that they were an assassination attempt on their President.

Zelensky stated that “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow; we fight on our territory,”.

Both of the above are full of media spin. The attack may well have been coordinated by "Kiev", indeed I believe that likely. However, if it was an assassination attempt it was a pitiful one. Putin wasn't there, and it is widely known that he rarely stays there overnight, and the attack was at night. Zelensky's statement that "We don't attack Putin" may well be true, depending on who 'we' is, but the 'we [only] fight on our territory' is an obvious lie, again depending on who 'we' is and whether only was implied.

Whatever, lets get to some inferring.

Who done it and Why?

Well, the obvious four groups are Russian secret services, Ukrainian secret services, or disgruntled Russians or disgruntled Ukrainians. Perhaps there's some overlap between disgruntled and 'secret service', but the end result is it was a Russian false flag operation or a Ukrainian attack (asymmetric warfare). It is possible that a "disgruntled" group could have been funded by some bloodthirsty billionaire to provide the wherewithal, but this looks like a stretch. We'll get to wherewithal later.

Ray McGovern begins by considering the false flag hypothesis, and comes to the obvious conclusion. What purpose would this serve? Putin doesn't need his nation gathered behind him (which is what a false flag is for) as they already are. Following the same logic, this would appear a very stupid thing for the Ukrainians to do as that would be, and is, the result. But, we need to think a little further to consider Ukrainian motives. It may be that they hoped for Russia to over react to the provocation and from that reaction enlist more support from NATO forces.

It is certainly the case that Ukraine could use all the help it can get. If recent changes motivated by the recent leaks, or "Spring-Offensive-Gate" as I like to call it, are any hint then the US is caught in a quandary. The warmongers want to continue to support the proxy war, but it is becoming politically difficult due to some internal resistance, if one believes the leaks were controlled. Actually, general resistance is building anyway. Recent polls of "Ukraine is winning?" and "Russia is losing?" have both shown drops from the mid 40% to the mid 20%. Thus, an over reaction by Russia may assist the warmongers in gathering political support to continue the stupidity of furthering the conflict.

Based on this "Cuo bono?" analysis, it makes no sense for Russia to stage this attack as they don't need the public support and doing this sort of thing is dangerous and risky. There is a motivation for Ukraine if Russia over reacts, but this is a rather risky and desperate ploy.

And that is why I put all of the effort into the background. There are forces in Ukraine who do risky and desperate things, all the time. This is just more risky and even more desperate. I contend that Ukraine is desperate and thus likely to take more risks.

Situation Ukraine

I've been following this conflict since 2021, in detail. If you dig up some of this newsletter's early articles you'll find things like this from June 2021.

My take is informed by people like Brian Berletic, Col. Macgregor, Dima (Military Summary Channel) and others like McGovern and Johnson.

Ukraine:

• is press-ganging poorly trained soldier to the font lines

• has lost, to this point, two armies worth of field equipment (its first, and the one that was rebuilt with the first round of resupply from European stockpiles of old Soviet weaponry)

• has a seriously degraded officer core

• has lost 25% of its population

• has no economy whatsoever and is on life support from the USA

• has lost 25% of its territory and shows no signs of reclaiming any of it

• has no airforce of any substance

• has insufficient air defense to protect its front lines

• is losing 500 to 1000 men under arms each day

• is suffering a kill ratio of between 5:1 and 10:1 against

• has been buying fuel from Russia at marked up prices

• has a collection of tanks of so many varieties that they cannot possibly operate effectively due to training and logistics nightmares

• has very little artillery ammunition and is losing ten or more artillery pieces per day

Okay, I'll stop there. On the political front, the USA is getting edgy, which means the European political leadership is too, even if they're not saying it. The prime reason for the European nervousness is that people in Europe are suffering high inflation and are starting to draw the connection between the war and their problems. And, as mentioned at the top of the article, the attack on the Kremlin alarms them.

On the other hand Russia is suffering none of these problems. Its armed forces are larger than they were when the SMO began. Its military industrial base has been activated and are producing the ammunition and systems (tanks, artillery, rocket launchers etc.) required. Russia started with a gargantuan amount of artillery ammunition, for this was the war they expected during the Soviet era. Now, instead of it being a defensive was, its an offensive one which they have turned into a war of attrition and are fighting very carefully. They are using their limited supply systems carefully and judiciously. I expect they are maintaining a very large stock of their advanced precision weapons in reserve in case things get really crazy. I hope they don't and I'm sure the Russian general staff hope so too.

Russia has no political problems. It has the support of China and its near abroad, excepting Ukraine and perhaps Georgia.

Ukraine is going to lose this war, the only question is when, and that is largely under Russia's control. For the meantime, Russia is just grinding the AFU down (de-militarization).

You are most welcome to disagree. However, my analysis from here assumes this.

But, back to the drones.

What happened?

I assume that the dome pictured in the drone destrction is large. One would expect this. Its in the Kremlin. We can see the drone in the footage, thus this is a large drone. Its is metres across. Thus, it can carry a large payload.

It was Larry Johnson who alerted me to the fact that it does not strike the flag pole, it explodes in mid-air. This is an important observation. Does the drone do any significant damage to the building? No. So, it either accidentally self-destructed due to some internal failure or because the people flying it pressed the Kaboom button at the wrong time or Russian defence forces destroyed it. The first two seem unlikely, so lets assume the last.

So, we have a large drone capable of carrying a fairly large payload which is destroyed over this dome in the Kremlin by Russian defense forces. Funnily enough, that's what the Kremlin said.

As for the destruction of the drone, what do we see? A bright flash. I assume there is also a loud noise, but we have no audio. The two combined are normal for the detonation of explosives, which one could reasonably assume was at least a component of the drone's payload. Then we see burning debris fall to the dome's roof and continue to burn, brightly. Apart from the payload, of what is the drone composed? Carbon fiber, light plastics, electronics, motors and a power source. Is the power source a battery or a liquid or solid fuel? I don't know, but I expect that what is burning is that fuel source and perhaps some plastics. The reason I think it is the fuel is the brightness and the duration of burning. If this is the case, it informs us that the drone could have traveled some distance, and that it still had sufficient fuel to travel further.

The descending incoming angle implies that the drone was close to where it was meant to be going, or that its controls were lost and it was just "falling" in a straight line. The first seems more plausible. It was close to target and had more fuel than required. Perhaps the excess fuel was meant to be there, as an addition to the explosives, to cause fire. Who knows?

We don't learn much from considering the destruction, but we have now considered the evidence we have; incoming trajectory, size of vehicle, point of destruction, nature of destruction.

Summing up, we've got a large drone armed with explosives and carrying fuel probably operated by some arm of Ukrainian military intelligence which is destroyed by Russian defence forces over a dome in the Kremlin. We are not certain of this, but this is where logic, evidence and likelihood lead us.

So, what is Russia going to do about it?

The Russian Response

Here, a line from the film "Red October" comes to mind:

"Russians don't take a dump without a plan."

The initial response will be to obtain all data to ascertain where the drone was made, from where it could have been operated, etc.. A few heads may roll for allowing the damn thing to get as close as it did, and one can expect a serious focus on Moscow and the Kremlin's security. They have already passed a law forbidding the flying of drones in Moscow, except by approved authorities.

Whatever data is gathered will only be made public where it will not risk intelligence "sources and methods". McGovern suggests that whatever data is chosen to be made available will not be until after the May 9th celebrations, which makes sense.

There may be some sort of response to assuage social pressure, but I'm not so sure. My feeling is that the response will be "business as usual", i.e keep winning the war, have the May 9th celebrations, and take the moral high ground showing stoicism. Russia is doing rather nicely with the war of attrition and prompting the US/NATO to be more involved when it looks like they are uncertain as to whether to continue would be a strategic error. They can let Medvedev mouth off and encourage everyone to blow a little steam, but the May 9th celebrations are the key. If they go well, all is in order, and that is where the focus will be nationally. Meanwhile in Ukraine and across the contact line, its more business as usual degrading the AFU bit by bit or more suddenly, as with the recent missile strikes, when juicy opportunities present themselves.

So, the "drone attacks" are largely irrelevant, except that security in Moscow and around the Kremlin and other important government offices, like the military, will be tightened and the odd head may roll.

Mike Jones (iEarlGrey) and John Mark Dugan note that Moscow police saw at least one of the drones and reported this to superiors. They then express frustration likely to be known to Moscow residents that getting anything done during the May holidays is nigh impossible, and that these reports to higher-ups in the police, in the evening, during the May holidays may have gone nowhere. If so, these are some of the heads what will roll.

Sources

Note: many of the sources below differ from my guesswork on Russia’s response. They are well informed commentators. I offer their commentary because of this, not to reinforce my argument, but to provide you, reader, with an array of considered opinion.

Zelensky regime’s fate is sealed, M. K. Bhadrakumar, Indianpunchline (his website), 2023-05-04

Zelenski's Regime Is Finished, b., MoonOfAlabama, 2023-05-04

Russia’s coming revenge attack on Ukraine for the attempted assassination of Putin, Gilbert Doctorow, his website, 2023-05-04

Ukraine Drone Attack on the Kremlin Pushes the War in Ukraine Up the Escalator, Larry Johnson, his website, 2023-05-03

Ukrainian banker offers cash for drone terror in Russia, Alex Rubenstein, The Grayzone, 2023-05-02

NYT Discovers Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis at War, Robert Parry, Consortium News, 2014-08-10 (republished 2022-03-06)

Russia, China, Ukraine & the U.S. What's Going On? - Alastair Crooke, Napolitano interviews Crooke, Judging Freedom, 2023-05-04

Missiles & Drones in the Ukraine War - Ray McGovern, Napolitano interviews McGovern, Judging Freedom, 2023-05-04

Kremlin Attacked- What do we know, What does it mean? Larry Johnson fmr CIA, Napolitano interviews McGovern, Judging Freedom, 2023-05-03

Ukraine Denies Strike on Kremlin. Counter Offensive HAS ALREADY BEGUN. U.S. Default is a 'Trick', iEarlGrey, his youtube channel, 2023-05-03

Russian Media Discusses TACTICAL NUKES Following Kremlin Attack. West Claims False Flag, iEarlGrey (Mike Jones) discusses events with friend John Mark Dugan, iEarlGrey youtube channel, 2023-05-04

Prigozhin angry. FT, Kremlin drone NOT false flag. EU infrastructure funds diverted to Kiev. U/1, Alex Christoforou, his youtube channel, 2023-05-05

• A very interesting analysis from Christoforou. I concur. The attack was by “rogue” elements in the Ukraine government. They are desperate. The offensive is going to fail and then the gravey train is going to stop. Desperate. The row between Wagner PMC and the Russian military is not a big thing (annoying, but not big).

• Offset: 00:14:40

---

Notification

Subscription is optional. Subscribers can expect notifications for most articles. Better is to use RSS (feed), or bookmark the Archive page and visit at leisure. If you use Twitter, following @YesXorNo1 is also a partially effective notifications strategy. A reliable notification mechanism is the use of Substack’s Notes facility.

Copyright and Licensing

This work is copyright to the blog's author with CC BY-SA 4.0 licensing. Have fun, reuse, remix etc. but give credit and place no further restrictions. Let’s build culture.

Comments: on topic, no abuse.