Although the drones were shot down, the incursion shows that the nerve center of Russia is not safe from war. Perhaps the irruption of the drones was just a warning, a bravado that an intercontinental missile is not necessary to shoot down the kremlin towers. In any case, it has become clear that a similar well-equipped and organized operation could eventually decapitate the Russian leadership.
Explosive-laden Russian drones still strike terror in their raids against critical infrastructure, military targets and the Ukrainian population. The latest attack has left almost twenty dead in Kherson. Now that same weapon, drones, has become a boomerang against Moscow capable of delivering a fatal blow where the final decisions on the invasion are made.
The incident of the drones shot down over the Kremlin has many unknowns, perhaps too many: where the devices took off, who sent them, why they went undetected if they left Ukraine or, even more disturbing, if the devices could have been activated by pro-Ukrainian fifth columnists from Russian territory.
However, it must be remembered that there have been previous Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory. Moscow is about 750 kilometers from kyiv and Ukrainian drones have a radius of action of around a thousand kilometers.
Russia will respond “where it deems appropriate”
In either case, even even if it was a false flag attack carried out by the Russian secret services, as they want to suggest in kyiv, the event gives a rudder to the conflictsince Russia has already said that it feels justified to respond forcefully to the attack “where and when it deems appropriate.”
The Ukrainian authorities have denied their participation in the irruption of the drones in the Moscow sky, but Russia points in their direction and has described the incursion as “a terrorist act” and “an attempt on the life of the president of the Russian Federation”, Vladimir Putin, who was not in the Kremlin Palace at the time the devices were shot down.
So far, the two contenders have avoided setting their sights on their respective leadership, but this drone assault breaks the deck. What the Russian administration is now saying is that it could do the same, that is, attack the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenskyno matter how protected it is by the powers of the West that arm Ukraine against Russia.
During the drone incident, Zelensky he was in Finlandin a surprise visit during which indicated that Ukraine would win a “decisive victory” over Russia this year.
As a result of the drone event, the president of the Russian Parliament, Viacheslav Volodin, has demanded the use of “weapons capable of stopping and destroying the kyiv terrorist regime”.
All eyes on May 9, Victory Day
The irruption of the drones has occurred in the vicinity of Red Square, the emblematic space in Moscow where the main activities of Victory Day will be held on May 9, which commemorates the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. In the statement accusing Ukraine of the drone attack, the Kremlin paid special attention to the fact that the attack occurred on the eve of that holiday.
Precisely, the russian authorities have reiterated in recent days that expect the Ukrainian counteroffensive on dates very close to Victory Dayin order to deal a moral, as well as a military, blow to Russia.
“With a high degree of probability the enemy will try to overshadow the celebration of Victory Day,” he said. Andrei Marochkorepresentative of the authorities installed by Russia in the Lugansk region, annexed last September.
According to Marochko, in the days leading up to the holiday there will be favorable weather conditions “that will allow the Ukrainian armed formations to make full use of the equipment and weapons supplied by the NATO countries.”
All ready for the great Ukrainian offensive
While the incursion of the drones on Moscow was taking place, preparations were being finalized in Ukraine for that military counteroffensive. The objective announced by Ukraine is to recover all the territories occupied by Russia in the east of the country. However, given the enormity of such an undertaking and its difficulties, for now kyiv would be content to deal Russia a resounding blow that would allow it to sit ahead of Moscow at a potential negotiating table. Very few in kyiv or the allied Ukrainian capitals think that Russian total defeat is imminent.
The head of the Wagner mercenary militia fighting alongside the Russian army in occupied Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has assumed that the counteroffensive of the Western-armed and prepared kyiv army against Russian fortified positions in eastern Ukraine has already begun. According to Prigozhin, the activity of the Ukrainian armed forces and, especially, of its aviation points to the beginning of this counterattack, which, in the coming days, could turn into a “active phase”.
If Ukrainian authorship is confirmed, drone attack on Kremlin could kick off Ukrainian counterattacklike those flares that during the First World War announced the offensives of thousands of soldiers from the trenches they occupied in the fields of France.
In recent months, the war in Ukraine has been reduced to that, to fierce confrontations at very specific points of that long front line turned into a double system of Russian and Ukrainian trenches.
But last Friday, the Ukrainian defense minister, Oleksii Reznikovalready announced that the preparations for the Ukrainian counteroffensive were in their final phase. “In general terms, we are ready,” Reznikov stressed..
During the last week there have been occasional Russian attacks with missiles and drones loaded with explosives against Ukrainian military and civilian targets, but no apparent troop movements. At the same time, acts of Ukrainian sabotage and attacks have multiplied, also with drones, against targets within the territory of the Russian Federation itself.
Resist in Bakhmut at all costs
As the moment of reckoning and the Ukrainian counter-attack approached, the army of kyiv has announced its firm decision not to withdraw from Bakhmut. It is about preventing a withdrawal from that town of Donetsk, already largely occupied by Russian militias, from being used by Moscow to attack the rear of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
State-of-the-art tanks, cannons, anti-aircraft systems and missile batteries donated by the West for the Ukrainian reconquest campaign have arrived in Ukraine in recent months. This Wednesday, the European Commission gave the backing to reinforce with another 500 million euros (in addition to the two billion already budgeted) the manufacture of ammunition in the European Union and thus supply projectiles to Ukrainian cannons and howitzers during the months that the counteroffensive can last.
“Speed, Speed, Speed”proclaimed the president of the EC, Ursula von der Leyen, commenting on the need to procure this ammunition as soon as possible.
On this same day, The United States has announced a new military assistance package for Ukraine valued at $300 million.. For the first time, this aid will have Hydra 70 short-range rockets to be used from planes and helicopters, ideal for destroying enemy tanks during an offensive, for example.
