Russian ambassador to U.S. denies Moscow staged drone strike on the Kremlin

Allegations that Moscow was responsible for an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin as part of a “false flag” mission to sow discord between Ukraine and its backers are “blasphemous and deceitful,” Russia’s envoy to the U.S. said Thursday.

Moscow has accused Kyiv of being behind Wednesday’s drone operation and said it was an attempt on the life of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he couldn’t confirm who was responsible but would take anything coming out of the Kremlin “with a very large shaker of salt.”

Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov called such statements “striking in their cynicism and absurdity,” saying the U.S. government should acknowledge that Ukraine was behind what he called an assassination attempt on Mr. Putin.

“In 2001, the Russian president was the first to lend a helping hand to the American people who were then subjected to the (Sept. 11) terrorist attack,” Amb. Antonov said on his Telegram social messaging account. “Everything is forgotten. Today, the United States is shielding the ‘Kyiv criminals.’”

On Thursday, a Kremlin official claimed that Washington not only condoned the alleged drone attack but was the driving force behind it.

“We know very well that decisions about such actions … are made not in Kyiv but in Washington,” Dmitry Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, told reporters. “Kyiv only does what it is told to do.”

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy has strongly denied that Kyiv carried out the drone strike on the Kremlin.

The U.S. would react with “harsh and inevitable” actions if a drone hit the White House, the U.S. Capitol or the Pentagon, Amb. Antonov said.

“Russia will respond to this insolent and presumptuous terrorist attack. We will answer when we consider it necessary,” he said.”The atrocities of the Zelenskyy regime and the indulgence of it by the West only testify to the fact that our adversaries have no desire to seek peace (and) to save thousands of lives or ordinary Ukrainians.”