New this
morning, the
Russian capital
getting a firsthand sense of war
after an alleged drone attacks.
You see a plume of smoke there
in the center of your screen rising.
And you can actually see
in this next video,
you see a drone flying over the city.
You'll see in just a moment.
See this man?
They're pointing it out as he looks at it
out of his window.
There is also video
that's been posted of what appears to be
a fragment of a downed drone.
Russian state
media says two
people were injured in Moscow
and three residential buildings
were damaged in the attack.
Russian military officials are blaming
Ukraine for the attack.
Something Ukraine denies.
We should note that
attack came
just hours after another aerial
assault on Kiev.
Ukrainian officials
say one woman was killed.
13 others were injured.
There have been 17 attacks on Kiev so far
this month.
Ahead of the planned counteroffensive.
And officials
just released this body camera video
and to that of police
responding to one of the attacks.
A real time
look at the daily reality of war
as officers help injured civilians.
Joining us now from CNN,
former CNN Moscow bureau chief
Jill Dougherty.
She's an adjunct professor
at Georgetown University.
Good morning, Jill.
I'm glad you could join us
last minute this morning
just to get your reaction
to this continued bombardment on Kiev
and then also what we saw
take place in Moscow.
Yeah, I think
what happened in
Moscow is really significant.
You know,
there have been attacks
by apparently
Ukrainians over the border
close to Ukraine.
But this is Moscow. This is a big deal.
Moscow is protected
by very serious air defenses.
And they say
the Russian officials say
that these drones were shot down,
but just in the air of fact.
Remember, a month ago
we had that drone,
two drones that went over the Kremlin
and the Kremlin
in the beginning wasn't quite sure
how to deal with it.
Kind of the same thing here.
They haven't really been able to deal
with the,
I would say, in a propaganda way
with what's happening.
And, you know, if you look at the drones,
the damage
militarily is not really great.
But the propaganda value really
is to the dilemma by Putin
You know, you could say he has to admit
that the war is expanding
and that it's hitting
the Russian capital.
That's very bad for him politically.
On the other hand,
I think what you're going to see
is the Kremlin
trying to spin this,
that the war, you know, now we have like
this is
until this survival of Russia, etc.,
they will use it
to try to get the Russian people united.
But I think
it's really a very disturbing thing for
Putin. It's a real problem for him.
So they'll try to spin that into
some other propaganda.
I find it interesting.
Our CNN military analyst, Colonel Cedric
Leighton, said this morning
very clearly
he says this is a warning
to the Russian people.
How do you think the Russian people are
taking it today?
Well, I've been
on social media
and can start to figure out
what they're thinking.
It's kind of hard to say,
but I think there's an element of shock.
There's no question
that drones have actually now
not just kind of symbolically gone
over the Kremlin,
but now they're hitting neighborhoods.
And I looked at a map
of where those winds hit.
So they're in the city.
And then outside
and they're in areas
kind of west of Moscow
where you have a lot of elite housing.
The president lives out in that area.
So this is this is really significant,
even if, again, the damage is minimal.
But the psychological damage, I think, is
quite strong.
Jill Dougherty, thank you very much.
CNN's Fred Pleitgen is in Kiev.
He's outside some buildings
that were damaged
where they were damaged overnight.
Fred, you spoke to the city's mayor.
What is he saying today?
Father Kate?
Well, Vitali Klitschko,
the mayor of the city,
was absolutely irate
about this drone attack.
He called it terrorism
on the part of the Russians.
But he also said that
actually the Ukrainian air defense
was pretty successful
and it was successful
thanks to a lot of the weapons
that Ukrainians are getting from
the US and its allies.
Let's listen in.
If we doesn't have
our defense model on air
defense from our partners,
we have
a much worse situation in our hometown.
More destroy the buildings and more
it will be more civilians killed
So one of the reasons, Kate,
why Vitali
Klitschko said
that I want to show you
that this building here
that I'm standing in front of,
this is the one of the ones
that sustained a lot of building
because it took a hit
from one of those shadow drones
that's supplied by the Iranians.
But the Russians are using.
You can actually hear
and see
that a lot of clean
up is already going on.
If we pan up,
you can see that
that drone crashed
right into the top floors
of this building.
Now, one person was killed there.
However, even that drone
that crashed into this
building was intercepted.
It was intercepted
by Ukrainian air defenses.
And they say that it was the fragments
of that drone, obviously,
including the warhead
that crashed into that building.
But I can tell you,
it was certainly
a very difficult night here for the folks
in the capital city.
We heard those
those drones
hovering overhead
for a substantial
part of the night,
several hours as Ukrainian air defenses
were trying to take them out.
At the same time,
you do feel
that resilience here
in the Ukrainian capital
as now only hours later,
the cleanup is going on
and people are trying to go
about their daily lives.
This, of course, comes
as Ukraine seems to be on the cusp
of that counteroffensive.
And Ukraine's president
now saying
the timing of that to set
the offensive has now been decided Kate.
Yeah.
Not telling you exactly one,
but that it has been decided.
And just to be clear, that's cleanup.
That's people
throwing like debris
off the off the rooftop behind you, Fred.
Yeah, that's exactly what's going on.
There was substantial damage
to the top floor apartments there.
And now they're sort
of clearing the debris,
throwing it down to then
be able to clean it up
as fast as possible.
They are pretty quick at doing that now.
Unfortunately,
they have a lot of practice
after a lot of the strikes
that have happened here
over the past year.
That's a great that's a great point.
Unfortunately,
they've become very good at that cleanup
very quickly.
Thank you,
Fred Pleitgen on the scene for us John.
All right.
With us now is retired
Brigadier General Peter, his work.
He is a global fellow
at the Wilson Center's Kennan Institute.
And served
as the US senior defense SSA
to the Russian Federation.
General, look,
I want to start with the drone attacks
on Moscow up here,
which is the Ukrainian border,
about 300 miles, depending on
what direction
you go from inside Ukraine.
I want to show people
the sights inside
Russia or in Russian control.
Territory
that have been hit
over the last several weeks.
You can see
most of the areas
have to do with the Russian occupation
directly of Ukraine, either
supply areas
or Russian held territory inside Ukraine.
Moscow
stands alone as a much different target.
Now, the Ukrainians deny
direct involvement
But what do the drone attacks in Moscow
do for the Ukrainians,
even if they didn't do it
Good morning, John.
And to your viewers.
Yeah, it is highly significant.
What we have going on here
is that the Russians are being fed
a narrative about the justness of this
military, the special military operation.
And they're going to prevail.
Yet they are they just had the Kremlin,
however it happened, hit last month.
They've just had Moscow and the suburbs
hit now.
And the drones are coming from somewhere.
It's an extreme
range for
if you will, the Ukrainian organic drones
or the
the doctors from Turkey,
if they were far from the border.
But the bottom line
is that they can't hide the war
from if you well, call the Saudis now,
what I would call mainstream Russia,
the bill payers.
Most of the war in Ukraine
had been most troops from the provinces,
but now they're having to deal with it.
And the
and the military bloggers are out there.
Prigozhin has already lambasted
the military again
just just a few hours ago
for their ineffectiveness
in defending the motherland.
And so this is very disconcerting for
for Putin and the Kremlin
in trying to keep it to
a stable narrative.
It's a big deal,
much bigger than the actual
sum of the strikes again.
And this is some video
of what the strike look like
inside Moscow.
That type of image is seen in Kiev
almost every time, several times a day.
This is some of the video
on the attacks on Key,
which have been relentless,
frankly,
over the last several days,
day and night.
Why are the Russians striking
now with such ferocity in
the Ukrainian capital?
I think for several.
First of all,
I was there with the delegation
of the Renewed Democracy
Initiative, an NGO focused on
countering authoritarianism
worldwide domestically.
Now, here,
I think it's a bunch of reasons.
One, there's fury
there's anger
that it's been going on now for months,
but especially after Kremlin strike.
There's a side of the Russians, John,
that I believe they want.
They want the Ukrainians to submit.
It's a word
that's almost medieval submit,
and they aren't.
And the more the Ukrainians fight back
and the more the Ukrainians
create problems in the area,
the harder it gets.
And they haven't figured it out.
I also think
increasingly the Russians
are now trying to
they're really nervous about the
the all the talk
about a counter-offensive
in the preparations,
the the shaping operations, everybody.
And so that's going on.
So they're lashing out in a way.
And and the thing that's critical
is that these are not hitting
effectively military targets.
They're primarily hitting targets
where there are a lot of civilians
and they're killing.
And if the Russians think
that's going
to make
the Ukrainians submit,
from our view
in my group that I was with,
we were there
for the first big night of the missile
strikes in Kiev on the 16th of May
when the Patriots
and other things were knocking down
notch kings, all Russian cruise missiles.
So it's on Ukrainians are implacable.
The Russians are increasingly frustrated
and they're increasingly worried.
And I think it goes
all the way back to the Kremlin.
General Peter Zack,
thank you so much
for helping us this morning.
We'll talk to you again soon.