Two drones exploded at the Kremlin in Moscow on Tuesday night. Could the incident be a false flag maneuver by the Russian state?
After the explosion of two drones on and above the roof of the Kremlin on Wednesday night, discussions about the cause continue. No wonder, after all, the building complex in Moscow is the control center of Russian power and the symbolic heart of the country. There is a lot of speculation, especially on social media.
The initially most obvious Russian interpretation of the incident: According to Russia’s accusation, Ukraine wanted to assassinate Vladimir Putin, the country’s president. His Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the blame for this at a press conference in Helsinki on Wednesday. “We are not attacking either Moscow or Putin,” he said.
But how do experts assess the alleged attack on the Kremlin? Can Ukrainian drones really fly as far as Moscow? Or is it a so-called false flag maneuver that Russia planned and now wants to blame on Ukraine? t-online has collected the opinions of some important experts on the subject.
What speaks for a false flag maneuver?
The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) identifies two main factors that could speak in favor of an action staged by Russia. On the one hand, Russia has significantly strengthened the air defenses in Moscow since January 2023. There are pictures from January showing how Pantsir air defense systems were installed on various roofs of the Russian capital.
The term derived from English False flag maneuver translates to “false flag maneuver”. What is meant is a military or secret service operation that is intended to blame the alleged opponent for the true authorship of an attack.
According to the ISW, had parts of the Ukrainian armed forces really managed to steer a drone through these tightly meshed air defenses, it would have been a surprise for Russia – and the drone might have caused significantly more damage. However, the reaction from Moscow was immediate, coordinated and coherent, which according to the experts may indicate an action planned by Russia.
Another point in favor of a false flag maneuver, according to the ISW, is the immediate dissemination of anti-Ukrainian narratives by the Russian state and military leaders. Russia could use the explosions to fake an existential threat to the Russian state just before the May 9 parade, with which Russia celebrates the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany.
This narrative of war as a means of securing one’s livelihood could be used by the Kremlin to push the mobilization of the Russian population in view of the lack of military successes in Ukraine.
Expert: “The cameras are under the control of the Kremlin”
Sergej Sumlenny, who was head of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Kiev from 2015 to 2021, also assumes a false flag maneuver. Sumlenny bases his opinion on the surveillance cameras near the Kremlin, which show the explosions at the government palace. “The cameras are under 100% Kremlin control,” the expert wrote on Twitter. Nobody can publish their recordings without his express permission.
And he interprets another point as a sign of an action staged by Russia: The Kremlin confirmed the explosions within a few hours. The former head of Ukraine’s Heinrich Böll Foundation says Russia found excuses for previous “setbacks” in the war, such as the destruction of the Moskva, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. The state leadership did not have to admit that the war in Ukraine was not going according to plan.
For the military expert Marcus Keupp, another factor is crucial. There were two missiles that flew to the Kremlin from different directions, he says in an interview with “Deutschlandfunk”. Shortly after the first explosion, two people on the roof of the Kremlin extinguished the fire. “The second missile then did no more damage,” explains Keupp.
“The Real Victim”
In addition, the explosion was very small in relation to the size of the missile, says the expert. “If you really wanted to hit the Kremlin hard, you would put more explosives on the flying objects,” says Keupp.
The American historian and expert on Eastern Europe Timothy Snyder takes a similar view: “Why should Russia stage the incident in the Kremlin? It’s quite simple: to try to persuade the Russians to support the war and to claim that Russia is the real victim and can do what it wants,” Snyder writes on his blog. A staged attack could be an attempt to unite the people behind Putin’s policies, just ahead of the May 9 celebrations. Then Russia commemorates the victory of the Soviet Union over Germany in World War II.
