Russia claims US behind the attempt to kill Putin, Whitehouse denies

Kathmandu: Russia claimed on Thursday that the United States was behind a drone attack on the Kremlin with the aim of killing President Vladimir Putin.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ukraine had acted on US orders to carry out drone attack on the Kremlin citadel in the early hours of Wednesday.

But both the United States and Ukraine have denied Russian claims. White House national security spokesman John Kirby dismissed the claims as ‘false’.

‘I can assure you that there was no involvement by the United States in this. Whatever it was did not involve us ‘ Kirby said, ‘We had nothing to do with this.’

The United States does not encourage or enable Ukraine to strike outside its borders, Kirby added. During an interview with MSNBC, he also said that it was still unclear what exactly happened at the Kremlin.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian government accused Ukraine of attempting to assassinate Putin and the allegation was reported by several state news agencies of the country. Moscow claimed a pair of Ukrainian drones 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.

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.