Speaker 1: Let's start today with Vladimir Putin and Russia.
We know that Russian casualties are mounting.
We know that Russia is being drastically affected by sanctions, even if they are undertaking
a public relations campaign to try to make the case that they're fine and everything's
fine.
And the latest in this seemingly interminable fiasco is Putin and Russia claiming that the
United States is actually behind an alleged Ukrainian drone attack, which I guess damaged
a flagpole and did nothing else, whereas intelligence analysts are saying it is far more likely
that this is a Russian false flag than it is something with American involvement, particularly
because it failed so badly.
If indeed the goal was to hurt somebody.
And it's just blatantly pathetic in terms of the video that has been released.
So let's go through this in pieces.
NBC News Report.
Russia claims the U.S. is behind the alleged Ukrainian drone attack on the Kremlin.
Both Kiev and Washington strongly denied involvement in what Moscow said without citing evidence
was an attempt to assassinate President Vladimir Putin.
Russia claimed Thursday the U.S. was behind the alleged drone attack on the Kremlin and
said it was a Ukrainian attempt to kill Putin.
This accusation was made without citing any evidence.
A less than 24 hours after Moscow said that it foiled an overnight drone strike on a building
that is the heart of the country's government and Putin's residence.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, quite a note of disinformation claimed Thursday that Washington
masterminded and masterminded the incident.
The U.S. swiftly rejected the accusation, saying it had nothing to do with it, as did
Ukraine.
Now there is another very interesting piece, a CNBC slash NBC report.
Analysts say Russia, quote, likely staged Kremlin drone attack it blamed on Ukraine
and the west.
Speculation is mounting that Russia staged the drone attack on the kremlin that it blamed
on Ukraine, with political analysts saying there are a number of reasons why the alleged
strike, which Russia called a planned terrorist attack, just doesn't add up.
Russia accused Ukraine of attempting to attack the Kremlin, saying the government in Kiev
tried to strike at the heart of Russia's government.
Russian President Putin wasn't injured in what it characterized as an assassination
attempt.
In fact, Putin had not been in the Kremlin at the time of the alleged incident, but provided
no evidence Ukraine carried it out.
Ukraine denied involvement.
Russia has often been accused of plotting false flag attacks that it can blame on Ukraine
and use to justify or escalate its own military aggression against the country as the war
drags on into its 15 month.
So what do we actually know?
I mean, we know that there was something on video that looks like a drone.
It appears as though it hit a flagpole.
Moscow claims it was Ukraine trying to kill Putin, masterminded by the United States.
There's no evidence of that.
Ukraine denies it.
The U.S. denies it.
Analysts say it was likely staged.
Now, let's believe it for a second.
And what I mean by that is let's believe for a second that this really was an attempt by
Ukraine masterminded by the United States to kill Putin.
Couple of different things.
One, we have to believe that an attack masterminded by the United States and carried out by Ukraine
hit a flagpole.
Okay.
Not the most predictable outcome that we would imagine.
And or secondly, we have to believe that Russia is admitting that their air defense system
is so poor that enemy drones now just fly over the Capitol and hit a flagpole at the
Kremlin.
Both of these scenarios certainly taken together.
Aren't super easy to believe.
And what we do know is that there's a very long history with Vladimir Putin of false
flag type events of this kind used to justify whatever.
And you can go all the way back to Putin's ascension to power with examples of that,
probably a topic for another day.
What we know is that Russia continues to have huge losses.
Russia believed this would be super easy when it started last year, 15 months ago.
And it's probably not easy to keep the Russian public patriotic and happy as family members
and friends and loved ones, etc., are being killed as a result of what was supposed to
be a very easy takeover of Ukraine.
So from a PR perspective, it would be extraordinarily useful to be able to credibly claim that the
Ukraine with a masterminded by the United States, Ukraine carried out such an attack
or attempted attack.
And the key line in all of this is that Russia says it will respond.
What is a response mean?
What will that response look like?
Well, we don't know yet, but that often is the name of the game.
Create a pretext, a surface, a pretext to then justify further escalations and maybe
have a PR impact to get more people on the side of this completely harebrained incursion
by Putin and Ukraine.
When you ask me how will it end, I still have absolutely no idea, but it's looking like
it's going to be relatively ugly.