Ukraine's president is visiting Finland.
NATO's newest member
sharing a border with Russia.
He's just been speaking in the wake
of those accusations
from Russia of a drone strike
on the Kremlin.
Let's hear what he had to say.
We don't attack
Putin or Moscow.
We fly, too, on on our territory.
We are defending our religious cities.
We don't have,
you know, enough weapons for these
That's why we don't use it anywhere.
So for us, that is a deficit.
We can't stand it.
And we didn't attack Putin.
But we leave it to tribunal
from the Swedish public broadcaster.
And my question
is also to President Zelensky,
just a little follow up on what
you just said.
Why do you think it is
in the interest of President
Putin to accuse Ukraine of trying to
assassinate him? Thank you.
he can no longer motivate his public.
He cannot send
his servicemen to die just like
nothing happens.
He has no victories on the battlefield.
Second of all means the world is lost.
They find themselves
capable of occupying Ukraine,
which they've got to hide from us.
And now he has to motivate somehow
those people.
He has to kill them going forward.
Like it's ex-convicts
who cannot go back
because they will be shocked
by the blocking squads.
This is their current position.
This is what is happening
in the military.
Our top story right
now, Moscow is claiming
that Ukraine tried to assassinate
President Vladimir
Putin with drone
strikes on the Kremlin last night.
Videos are circulating
purporting to show the alleged attacks.
But at this stage, we cannot verify them.
Here they are. Take a look at that drone.
Moscow is calling the alleged strikes
a terrorist act
and says it reserves the right
to take retaliatory measures.
Ukraine denies
any involvement saying
it does not attack other countries.
We've got team coverage on our story.
Standing by for us.
I'd like
we've got I've just got confirmation
that Matthew Chance
is with us from London.
And we've got Nic Robertson
as well in eastern Ukraine.
Great to have you both with me today.
Nick,
I want to start
with what we've been hearing
from Ukraine,
in particular distancing themselves
from this attack.
But I want to
sort of
take a step back here
and talk about the potential impact
of these accusations
and the information
that we're getting through from the
Kremlin at this stage.
Typically in the past, the
Kremlin has said
things that is then used to act upon
things that have proven not to be true,
but have given them the pretext
for an attack, a false flag operation.
Ukraine appears concerned
that this may be such an instance.
They feel that
perhaps the Kremlin will use
what happened over
the Kremlin
with these two alleged incidents
with drones.
60 minutes apart
over the Kremlin last night
to use that
as a pretext
for some sort of attack on Ukraine.
They're concerned
because Russia
has a track record of doing that.
Ukraine says it is not connected
to these drone incidents.
It says it will use all means
to defend its own territory,
to defend its own territory.
It describes
the Russia's claims
that this was an assassination
attempt on President Putin
as part of Russian trickery.
They suggest is the Kremlin
trying to drive up
support for the war
in Ukraine ahead of the very important
May Day
celebrations outside the Kremlin
on Red Square.
Very big annual celebrations
on the 9th of May
that celebrate and commemorate
the huge loss of life.
10 million tens of millions of Russians
who lost their lives
during the Second World War.
This is the Kremlin and President
Putin trying to sort of build up support
for that parade for the war in Ukraine.
But I think when you
when you do step back
and try and analyze the situation
it is a particularly tense situation
because Russia
is expecting the possibility
of Ukrainian counteroffensive.
And there have been over the past
couple of weeks
a noticeable uptick
in the number of incidents that have
that have targeted Russia's
supply lines and ammunition
and fuel depots.
Inside of Russia,
but near the border with Ukraine.
So when you take that picture
in its totality, Ukraine
and whether or not it was involved,
the fact that the Kremlin escalates
whatever it was to the level
of an attempted assassination
of President Putin,
Russia's taken this up
to the maximum level that it can.
And that's what would cause the concern
of how Russia may then use this incident
for its own purposes.
Matthew, you know,
we're looking at
potential scenarios here.
Here's what we do have.
We have a video that we haven't
been able to to verify.
But this is
what Russian media is using right now.
The Kremlin saying
there was an assassination
attempt on Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainians saying
we're distancing ourselves from this.
But the messaging,
I guess
the underlying message to Russians
is that the war has come to Russia.
It has breached the Kremlin.
Yeah. And that's why
it's so extraordinary
that if this is an operation,
a sort of full flag operation,
it's been set up by the Russians.
It's an extraordinarily risky one
because it is reminding Russians
that this war is very real
and that it
is coming back to bite them,
as it were, right
in the center of the capital.
And the fact that this imagery
is now on Russian television
being watched by millions
of people around
the country is a remarkable
sign of vulnerability and weakness
on the part of the Kremlin.
The fact that a drone or two drones
could strike
at the symbolic and political
and geographical heart
of the Russian state is
is an extraordinary moment.
I think that that will really ram home
to people around the country in Russia,
that this war is in a desperate,
desperate situation,
not in terms of what
the Russian response will be.
Well,
I mean, clearly,
the Russians are characterizing
this as an assassination
attempt against the
the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
And if it is real, by the way,
then, you know,
they have every right,
I think,
to take this extremely seriously.
This is the presidential palace.
This is where Vladimir Putin
has an apartment,
although he wasn't said
to be there at the time
and is where he works in the daytime.
It's where his official offices are
for the most part of the week.
And so,
you know, it is a
if it is a real attack
and the pictures look real to me,
I have to say, then it is a huge coup
on the part of whoever carried it out
at striking at the Russian state.
And in terms of who carried out,
the Ukrainians have distance themselves
from this.
They often do distance themselves
from attacks
that take place
inside the territory
of the Russian Federation.
There are partizans
partizan groups, Russians
who are active increasingly
inside the country.
And as Nic Robertson was
kind of listing there,
there have been a number of attacks
in the past week
against railway
infrastructure targets, against an oil
storage facility
in the south of the country as well,
which are inside Russian territory.
Now, some of these
could have been carried out
by Ukrainian secret services, presumably
others could have been carried out
by these partizan groups
who are increasingly active
and who are striking at various targets
inside the Russian Federation,
sometimes potentially with the assistance
of elements of the Ukrainian state,
as well as the Ukrainians
have been at pains to to deny
any involvement
in any of these kinds of incidents.
One of the reasons
the Ukrainians are denying it
so ferociously is that
there has been an absolute red line drawn
by its main sponsors
in the West, particularly United States,
that it doesn't want to see
Ukrainian attacks taking place inside
the Russian Federation,
inside the territory of Russia.
And in case that elicits a much
more dramatic response from the Kremlin.
Now, it was interesting to hear what
Anthony Blinken, the U.S.
secretary of state,
said a few moments ago
when he was asked
about the possibility of Russia
sorry, of Ukraine
striking at targets inside of Russia.
He had a much more soft attitude
towards that possibility, saying
he was going to leave it up
to the Ukrainians to decide
how best to fight the war.
That's a significant departure
from ruling out
any weapons being used to strike inside
the Russian Federation.
So it just
looks like
all these ways of sort
of putting additional pressure on Russia
as Ukraine prepares
what is meant to be
a spring offensive
but is quickly turning into
a summer offensive
to retake Ukrainian land
inside that country
from Russian occupation forces
and this drone strike on the Kremlin.
If it's real
and if it's not made up by the Russians,
to kind of
provide justification
for some kind of attack
inside inside Ukraine,
then that's a further example
of how that pressure is building.