Moscow (EFE) the Russian capital.
Russia accused Washington on Thursday of being behind the attack, as well as other attacks on Russian territory.
“We know that the decisions about the attacks are not made in kyiv, but in Washington,” said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov, in his daily telephone press conference.
Here are the biggest questions so far:
What happened on the night of May 3 over the Moscow sky?
The Kremlin did not release images of the attack, but several videos were posted on Russian social media purporting to capture the moment of the incident. According to this visual material, a first drone flew from the south of the capital towards the Kremlin and exploded over the dome of the Senate Palace at 02:27 local time (23:27 GMT), according to the clock on the Spasskaya tower.
A second drone, apparently coming from the east of the capital, exploded in the same place at 02:43 local time, 16 minutes later.
When did Russia report what happened?
The Russian Presidency only published a statement on the Kremlin website around 2:35 p.m. local time, that is, 12 hours later. Despite the videos that were recorded at dawn, nothing had transpired. Minutes before the statement, the Moscow Mayor’s Office had reported that it was prohibiting the use of drones over the capital.
In the statement, the Presidency accused Ukraine of the attack and assured that the objective was to assassinate the president, Vladimir Putin, who barely spends the night in the Kremlin and prefers to work from his residence in Novo-Ogariovo, on the outskirts of Moscow.
In the opinion of the Kremlin, the “terrorist” attack occurred on purpose on the eve of Victory Day and the May 9 military parade on Red Square.
Did Russia present evidence of the accusations?
No, not so far.
Neither images, nor photographs of the remains of the drones, nor details about their origin or manufacture.
How did Ukraine react?
President Volodimir Zelensky assured that Ukraine “does not attack Putin or Moscow” and that “it only fights on its territory.”
One of his advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, tweeted that it may be a false flag attack to justify a major attack on Ukraine or clandestine work by “local resistance.”
Has any group claimed responsibility for the attack?
Not so far.
How did the Russian elite react?
The president of the Duma, Viacheslav Volodin, has been furious with the alleged incident and has called for the use of weapons capable of destroying “the terrorist regime in kyiv.”
For his part, the Vice President of the Security Council, Dmitri Medvedev, called for Zelensky to “physically eliminate”.
Is it possible for Ukrainian drones to penetrate the Russian anti-aircraft defense?
Ukraine has drones of its manufacture (UJ-22 from Ukrjet) that can travel a distance of 800 kilometers.
The distance from the Ukrainian border to the Kremlin is about 450 kilometers in a straight line. But so far they have not been reported to have been fitted with an explosive charge and they are easily detectable.
One of these UJ-22s went down in February 10 kilometers south of Moscow.
The state company “Ukroboronprom” announced at the beginning of the year that it had produced the first model of a drone with a range of a thousand kilometers.
Could they have been launched from Russia?
It is an option, according to the Ukrainian version.
FPV drones without a GPS receiver could be used, according to military experts, but the videos point to a fairly large vehicle that would be difficult to launch from the capital without detection.
The US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) states that the Kremlin’s “coherent and coordinated response to the incident suggests that the attack was internally prepared in such a way that the anticipated political effects outweigh the embarrassment.”
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, also warned that “everything that comes out of the Kremlin must be taken with great caution.”
Isn’t the Kremlin supposed to be the most protected building in the country?
According to geolocated images from January, Russia has deployed Pantsir anti-aircraft systems near Moscow to create a defensive ring around the capital, and the country reportedly has powerful radio-electronic warfare systems.
Any tourist or Russian who has passed through Red Square when Putin was in the Kremlin knows that their browsers suddenly point to Vnukovo airport.
In any case, the incident represents a blow to Russian counterintelligence and shows errors in the organization of the anti-aircraft defense and the radio electronic fight in the direction of the Kremlin.