I’m thinking the chances of this being a Russian false flag op to justify the war, demonize Ukraine and motivate Russian people are somewhere around 90%.
Interesting morning in Moscow. Attack by drones.
The drones that attacked Moscow were launched from the Moscow region and were Chinese — InformNapalmWhat is currently known:
— This morning, 8 UAVs attacked Moscow, the russian Defense Ministry reported. Three of them were suppressed by electronic warfare, five were shot down by Pantsir-S air defense systems in the Moscow region.
— The first UAV crashed into the 25th floor of a house on Atlasova Street in New Moscow. Windows were broken on the 25th, 24th and 23rd floors. Damaged concrete floor slab. No one was hurt.
— The second drone attacked a residential building on Profsoyuznaya Street at about 05:20. He crashed into the window of an apartment on the 16th floor. There was one woman in the room. She didn’t get hurt. The UAV carried a KZ-6 cumulative charge. He flew into the apartment along with part of the drone and, by a lucky chance, did not explode. Such a charge pierces reinforced concrete slabs up to half a meter thick.
—- The third residential building - 30-story - was attacked by a drone at seven o’clock in the morning - on Leninsky Prospekt. This drone was carrying three KZ-6s, it crashed into the 14th floor of the house. 300 people were evacuated.
— The “Typhoon” plan was introduced in the police of Moscow and the Moscow region - it involves the collection of personnel involved in the elimination of the consequences of emergencies.
— Two people asked for medical help, they didn’t need hospitalization. Nobody was seriously hurt. Sergei Sobyanin announced this.
One of the drones was shot down a 10-minute drive from Putin’s residence, the other fell three kilometers from Novo-Ogarevo [elite].
Deputy Khinshtein claims that one of the drones was shot down over the village of Razdory near Moscow. Journalist F.Rustamova drew attention to the fact that this is a part of Rublyovka, where state dachas, personal homes of officials and businessmen are located. Putin’s residence “Novo-Ogaryovo” is a 10-minute drive from the village.
“We Can Explain” writes that another drone crashed in the village of Ilyinskoye, which is even closer to Putin’s residence - just three kilometers away. Nearby is also the village of Znamenskoye, where the estate of Putin’s friend Gennady Timchenko, the residence of Mikhail Mishustin and the house of Putin’s former son-in-law Kirill Shamalov are located.
Here is what the TG channel “We can explain” writes:
“War has come to Rublevka. At the epicenter of the drone attack were the estates of Putin’s elite. Federal TV almost doesn’t report on the attack.
On the air of federal TV channels, almost nothing is reported about the largest drone attack since the beginning of the war on the capital and the nearby area, - the journalists noted. “Russia-24” emphasizes that the buildings were slightly damaged, and all the drones were “suppressed”. TV channels didn’t interrupt their broadcasts for special news programs, there is no “Urgent” sign on the air of “Russia-24” - as usually happens during extraordinary events.
Probably, this was a psychological attack, and on places inhabited by Putin’s elite. In Moscow, these are prestigious south-western microdistricts. In the suburbs of Moscow there is the Rublev highway and its surroundings, where Putin’s close friends live: oligarchs and officials.
One of the drones fell in the village of Ilyinskoe - just 3 kilometers from the residence of President Putin in Novo-Ogarevo.
It’s the most probable. Other possibilities are one of the factions trying to take out rivals or (one hopes) Russians in opposition to the Putin regime attacking it’s elites. The least likely is Ukraine doing this; it doesn’t make sense from a military viewpoint.
Peter Beaumont
At least one of the drones used to attack the outskirts of Moscow appears to have been a Ukrainian manufactured UJ 22 drone produced by the Ukrjet company writes Peter Beaumont.
Alleged footage of the drone, captured in flight during the attack, appears to match released images of the unmanned aerial vehicle which Russia has claimed has been used in other attempted attacks.
Looking like a scaled down light aircraft, the UJ22 has a claimed range of 800 kilometres and able to fly for six hours, the UJ 22 was designed primarily as a reconnaissance and attack drone able to carry a payload of about 20 kilos, typically grenades and mines – including six RPG-7VM grenades, or four 82-mm mortar mines.
Able to take off and land on a 100m air strip, the operating range with a ground crew is believed to be about 100km. However recent use of the drones suggests that certain models have been refitted as kamikaze drones with target information preprogrammed into the aircraft.
Images of damage to buildings in Moscow from Tuesday’s drone attack appeared consistent with a small explosive payload that appears to have led to largely superficial damage.
If confirmed as a UJ 22, it would fit with an apparent pattern of recent efforts by Kyiv to hit targets deep inside Russia with drones.
In February 2023 UJ-22 crashed in Russia 100 km from Moscow after managing to travel about 460 km into Russian territory without being destroyed by Russia’s air defences.
The latest attack – in terms of scale at least – suggests Ukraine is becoming more ambitious in both the scope and its abilities to conduct long range drone attacks even if the weapons involved have much smaller payloads than the Iranian manufactured Shaheed drones being used by Russia to attack Ukraine.
The primary purpose of recent Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside Russia appears as much psychological as anything else – an attempt to bring the war in Ukraine to the door step of Russians.
Possibilities
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This was a test to probe air defenses around the capital - only makes sense if Ukraine intends a sustained campaign around Moscow
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A morale raid, like the US Doolittle raid on Tokyo. Scare the Russians and encourage Ukraine
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The attack causes Russia to have to commit depleted assets to homeland defense to assuage the fears of those in the area targeted, removing those assets from the battlespace and giving Ukraine more options there.
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An assassination attempt - very unlikely
As I posted above, the Russian source “We can explain” claims that the drones flew close to the homes of Putin and numerous elite Russians, and one drone was aimed at “the village of Vlasikha - there is the central command post of the Strategic Missile Forces”.
If so, the goal would be to scare elite Russians and preferably make them flee to Dubai or wherever, and to disrupt Russian missile strikes on Ukraine.
IIRC all the S-300 surface to air missile systems in Saint Petersburg were removed and sent to occupied Ukraine, so it seems possible that reinforcing air defence around Moscow will require bringing hardware back from the front.
Doolittle raid style strategy? Force them to redeploy forces to protect the motherland and further degrade the offensive (and defensive) capabilities at the front lines? I could see a similar strategy in force in the Belgorod attacks. Interesting if true, and likely very effective.
IIRC dashcams are banned in Ukraine under martial law regulations, on the grounds that they could be used to record troop movements and damage caused by missile strikes.
BBC News - Ukraine war: ‘Children die’ in new missile attack on Kyiv
