Kiev has denied involvement in that incident. (file)
Russia said on Thursday the United States was behind a drone attack on the Kremlin aimed at killing President Vladimir Putin, while Moscow’s military fired more combat drones at Ukrainian cities including the capital Kiev.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said without providing evidence that Ukraine had acted on US orders with the alleged drone strike on the Kremlin citadel early Wednesday.
Kiev has denied involvement in the incident, which followed a string of explosions last week targeting freight trains and oil depots in western Russia and Russian-controlled Crimea. Moscow has blamed Ukraine for those attacks as well.
“Attempts to deny it (the attack on the Kremlin), both in Kiev and in Washington, are absolutely ridiculous. We know very well that decisions about such actions regarding such terrorist attacks are made not in Kiev but in Washington Peskov told reporters.
The Kremlin has said it reserves the right to retaliate. Peskov said on Thursday that an immediate investigation was underway and that any response would be carefully considered and balanced.
Separately, Russia’s foreign ministry said the alleged drone strike “should not go unanswered” and showed Kiev had no desire to end the 15-month-old war at the negotiating table.
Kyiv, Odessa targeted
Earlier, Russia fired two dozen combat drones into Ukraine, attacked Kiev for the third time in four days and also attacked a university campus in the Black Sea city of Odessa, in a bid to reclaim land captured by Ukraine. before a major counter-attack.
There was no report of any casualty.
Kiev’s city administration said Russia may have fired ballistic missiles as well as drones, but all of them were shot down.
It added, “The Russians attacked Kiev using Shahd stray ammunition and missiles, most likely of the ballistic variety.”
Ballistic missiles are difficult to shoot down, and their downing may indicate that Ukraine used sophisticated Western-supplied air defense systems against them.
Overall, air defenses shot down 18 of the 24 “kamikaze” drones in the pre-dawn attack, officials said. The Southern Military Command said that of the 15 drones fired at Odessa, 12 were shot down, but three targeted the university campus.
DTEK and the energy ministry said shelling in the Donetsk region damaged a power station owned by power company DTEK Energy, but there were no reports of casualties.
The death toll from Russian shelling in and around Kherson in southern Ukraine rose to 23 on Wednesday, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
“The enemy’s target is the places where we live. Their target is our lives and the lives of our children,” he said in an online video on Thursday after a hypermarket, a railway station and residential buildings were targeted.
Russia denies targeting civilians in Ukraine.
TASS news agency reported that Russian emergency services quickly extinguished a fire at the largest Ilsky oil refinery in southern Russia, after a drone strike ignited product storage facilities.
Ukraine rarely takes responsibility for what Moscow says are frequent drone attacks against infrastructure and military targets, especially in areas close to Russia.
‘Full power of justice’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the International Court of Justice (ICC) in The Hague on Thursday and said Putin should be brought to trial for war.
In March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Putin for the suspected deportation of children from Ukraine.
Zelensky said in a speech, “The aggressor must feel the full power of justice. This is our historical responsibility.”
Russia, which is not a member of the ICC and rejects its jurisdiction, denies committing atrocities during its “special military operation” in Ukraine, which it says was carried out to defend its security against a hostile, aggressive West. is necessary for
Zelensky, whose country has received substantial Western military and financial aid, has vowed to drive all invading Russian forces back to the borders established in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
There are currently no peace talks to end the war, which has devastated Ukrainian towns and cities, killed thousands and driven millions from their homes.
The Kremlin said Thursday it was aware that Pope Francis was looking for ways to end the war, but did not know of any detailed Vatican peace plans.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)