Russia accuses Ukraine of attempting to kill Putin with drone

Kathmandu: Russia has accused Ukraine of attempting to assassinate Vladimir Putin with drone strike on the Kremlin.

The Russian government made the allegation on Wednesday and the allegation was reported by several state news agencies of the country. Moscow claimed a pair of Ukrainian drone exploded over Putin’s Kremlin residence in the early hours.

Russia said it had foiled the attempt and called it a ‘planned terrorist act and an attempt to take the life of the President of the Russian Federation’. It has prompted demands from Russian lawmakers for the Kyiv government to be ‘destroyed’.

According to the reports, Russian officials warned of their right to retaliate after the failed drone attack on the Kremlin.

In a statement, the Kremlin said it regarded the alleged attack as terrorism and a deliberate attempt on Putin’s life. ‘Russia reserves the right to take retaliatory measures where and when it sees fit,’ it added.

The Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti that Putin wasn’t in building at the time of the nighttime attack and was working from the Novo-Ogaryovo residence.

The overnight attack on the Kremlin have also infuriated the officials in Moscow.

Russia’s ex-president Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday called for the ‘physical elimination’ of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky after the drone attack on the Kremlin aimed at assassinating Vladimir Putin.

‘After today’s terrorist attack, there are no options left aside the physical elimination of Zelensky and his cabal,’ Medvedev said.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has denied his country had any involvement in an alleged drone strike on the Kremlin.

Speaking in the Finnish capital Helsinki, where he was meeting Nordic leaders on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said ‘we did not attack Putin.’ ‘We leave him to the court. We are fighting on our territory, we are defending our villages and our cities,’ he added.