It's a bad time to be a Muscovite- though not as bad as being a Ukrainian in any village
regularly shelled or stuck by drones or cruise missiles. But for the first time
in the entire war, the Russian people are finding out what it's like to live
in a country being attacked. And the response could spell doom for Putin.
Two people were injured in Moscow as drones struck wealthy neighborhoods in the capital or were shot
down by Russian air defenses. The attack on May 30th will go down in history as what one Russian
politician called “the most dangerous attack on the capital since World War two”, as an unknown
number of drones flew into Moscow. These drones were unarmed however, and delivered no explosive
payloads as would be expected. Instead, the drones rammed themselves into multiple buildings,
sending a cold chill down the spine of the wealthy Muscovites living in those neighborhoods.
A sobering realization overcame Moscow's elites when it became clear that the drone attack was
carried out with suicide drones carrying no explosives save for their on board fuel,
which started small fires that were quickly extinguished. Had these drones
been armed with their typical payload of fragmentation high explosive-tipped bombs,
the damage could have been severe with casualties in the dozens.
But the fact that the drones were unarmed only raises more questions,
and there are already plenty to answer such as why did the drones hit where they hit,
how did they get so deep into Russian territory, why did Russian air defenses fail so miserably,
and how is this high profile attack on the capital going to affect Putin personally?
Russian state news has kept as tight a lid on the drone attack as possible. Censorship
is as strict as it was in the pre-Glosnast era during the Cold War, and only getting worse as
the war turns increasingly sour for Putin. The Wagner group, for instance, is now persona non
grata on Russian news, as broadcasters and journalists have been forbidden from even
mentioning the organization after Prigozhin's high profile beef with the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Russian news lies prolifically, so the west has been forced to piece together the events
and damage done to Moscow via a variety of means including official statements,
internal Russian social media, and eyewitness accounts. What we've found so far includes three
verified drone strikes- a residential building on the outskirts of the city,
a high-rise apartment block, and a third high-rise building. A drone was also videoed flying over a
wealthy Moscow suburb. According to the Russians, their Pantsir air-defense batteries- installed
just this year in central Moscow- intercepted five of the drones. Other soft-kill systems designed
to confuse drones or interrupt their control links were also allegedly used to down more.
The drones used in the attack are suspected to be Ukrainian in origin, but they don't look anything
like the UJ-22 drone widely used by Ukraine. Instead, these drones had a different fuselage,
wheel positioning, and even wings- with two large wings at the rear and two smaller wings at the
front. Drone experts who reviewed a video capture of one of the drones estimated that due to the
wing shapes and placements, these drones likely had a range in excess of “tens” of kilometers,
possibly even “hundreds”. This makes it possible the drones were launched from inside Ukraine,
but Ukraine itself has denied any involvement in the attack- even if they have publicly celebrated
it. Multiple people on social media however have commented that at least some of the drones bore
a strong resemblance to the natively-developed Beaver drone. This is a drone Ukraine has been
building itself specifically for use in long-range attacks like this one.
Since 2023, Russia has been targeted by drones more than 60 times, but the vast majority of these
were attacks in the Bryansk and Belgorod regions, or in occupied Crimea. As all three territories
are staging grounds for the invasion, or directly support it, it makes sense for them to have been
targeted. Moreso, they are relatively easy for Ukraine to hit. The latest attack on Moscow,
and the infamous attempt at assassinating the Kremlin's Russian flag on May 3rd however,
are some of the boldest and longest-range drone attacks carried out so far.
But it's exactly that range that has people questioning where these drones really came from.
Russia is terrible at a lot of things, but it does ground-based air defense pretty well- at
least when it actually bothers to turn its air defense radars on or has fuel for their air
defense vehicles, which turns out is a bigger challenge for Russia than any military planner
ever thought it would be pre-2022 invasion. Even flying at low altitudes, these drones should have
been easily spotted by Russia's ground-based air defenses protecting Russia. Knowing that it stood
no chance against NATO in the air, Russia put all its bonus points into ground-based air defenses,
and as a result fields a very robust air defense network. If launched from Ukraine,
these drones should have been blasted out of the sky long before they reached their destination.
Yet to date Russia has proved incompetent at protecting everything from military air fields
to its own capital from drone attack. With Kyiv's interception rates ranging around 90%, Moscow's
repeated targeting really calls into question the competency of Russia's air defenses. Yet
as we've learned, it's not easy to tell exactly what's going wrong or even really going on. Yep,
that's right, Russia is so terrible at just about everything that we're left completely
in the dark as to how these drones have been penetrating so deep into Russia territory.
Common sense says that these drones must have been launched from inside Russian territory
in order to avoid targeting until the last possible second. However, common sense also
says you should turn on your fleet's air defense cruiser's actual, you know, air defense radar,
and yet here we are in 2023 and the Moskva is still an artificial reef, killed by two aging
anti-ship missiles of the type it was specifically built to protect the entire Black sea fleet from.
While that might be a cheap joke on our behalf, as it's been speculated but not verified that
the Moskva did not have its air defense radars fully powered up, we have confirmation of Russian
air defense radars being left turned off by air defense vehicle crews, shortly before
getting creamed by Bayraktar drones. We also have wreckage from various aircraft with maintenance or
safety pins still in the position that would have prevented their radars from working.
So like we said, Russia is so incompetent it's truly impossible to Occam's Razor this and say
that yes, it's very likely the drones were launched close to their targets. You probably
wouldn't think that air defense crews were still this bad at their jobs- sure, maybe at the start
of the war, but not now- but then again you also wouldn't think Russia would leave its border
completely unsecured, inviting a two day field trip by two anti-Putin Russian partisan groups.
Russia claims that this is exactly what happened- Ukrainian saboteurs infiltrated Russia to launch
the drones near Moscow. Naturally, Ukraine has denied this. The fact that the drones weren't
armed however speaks to the fact that Russia may actually be right for once. But it also
speaks to a different possibility altogether, because this is Russia we're talking about.
Ukraine could have very well been behind the attack, using unarmed drones that simply rammed
themselves into buildings. This theory makes a lot of sense, as Ukraine knows that some of
its western partners would frown at it attacking inside of Russia- let alone with deadly weapons.
Plus, the use of explosive suicide drones against civilian targets is a war crime,
and the type of thing that to date Ukraine has been very careful to avoid in order to not lose
the moral high ground and thus its western support. This has created deep frustration
amongst many both within and outside of Ukraine, as war crimes is literally how Russia fights wars,
and yet Ukrainian supporters feel it's unjust that Ukraine can't retaliate. Yet if Ukraine
wishes to join the EU and NATO, then it must abide by its rules by sticking to the high road.
The fact that affluent Moscow neighborhoods were targeted also speaks to this being Ukraine's plot
all along. The affected neighborhoods were places that Moscow's civilian and political elite live,
and many suspect that the attack was meant to rattle their cages. However,
in the aftermath of the attack something unexpected happened as many regular Russians
began to celebrate the attacks. To the average Russian, these attacks targeted wealthy elites
who make a living stealing from the state or exploiting the Russian people. The celebration
of the attacks got so much traction that multiple Russian military bloggers were
forced to issue appeals for Russians to unite in condemnation of the attacks,
stating that quote- “we're all Russians”. True enough, they're all Russians- but only
one very specific group is completely exempt from having to fight this disastrous war so far.
The evidence seems to line up to point at Kyiv as the responsible party, but this is
where Russian politics comes into play to create two alternate and equally plausible scenarios.
One of the side effects of the attack is the embarrasment of not just Moscow, but
Putin himself. The May 3rd attack on the Kremlin shook the foundations of Russia to their core,
and the invasion of the Belgorod region by the Freedom of Russia Legion and the
Russian Volunteer Corps brought the war home to many ordinary Russians,
as their territory was occupied for 48 hours by a hostile military power. Footage a of mass exodus
of civilians and the capture of Russian prisoners spread like wildfire through social media,
even as the official Russian media pretended like everything was fine.
Russia couldn't keep Russians safe, and this meant Putin was failing at his job. The latest
drone attack just piles on more pressure on the autocratic dictator- and it's not
just Kyiv who's interested in seeing Putin dragged out into the street Mussolini style.
Wagner Group's Prigozhin has been a curious figure in the ongoing war. As leader of Wagner Group,
Prigozhin was one of Putin's favorite lapdogs. However, it seems his attitude towards Putin has
changed as the cost to Wagner grew exponentially through failed offensives and Pyrrhic victories
such as the Battle of Bakhmut. Prigozhin found himself at odds with Sergei Shoigu,
head of the Ministry of Defense, and many assumed that his constant attacks on Shoigu and Chief of
General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov were Prigozhin's way of undermining both leaders in a
possible bid to become their replacement. Indeed, the internal feud cost many Russian lives through
various machinations on the military's behalf, and even outright fire fights between the
military and Wagner. There is rumors that Wagner even leaked information on Russian generals and
senior officers it wanted removed, allowing Ukraine to target them with HIMARS strikes.
Through all this, Prigozhin remained one of Putin's very best boys,
but the relationship seemed to sour as the Battle of Bakhmut dragged on. Recently,
Prigozhin suggested that the quote- Grandfather- may have no idea what he's doing. Famously,
senior officials refer to Putin as grandfather, and though Prigozhin
has deftly dodged answering who he was referencing, the implication is clear to most.
In mid-May a story broke alleging that Prigozhin had offered Ukrainian intelligence a deal: in
exchange for allowing Wagner to take Bakhmut, he would give Ukraine detailed information on Russian
military positions, allowing them to launch devastating strikes against them. Wagner would
get the glory of having taken Bakhmut and end the never-ending cascade of casualties coming out of
the town, while Ukraine got to inflict significant damage on the Russian military itself. Ukraine
denied the deal- probably realizing they could do more damage to Russia by defending Bakhmut.
Prigozhin denies this report, but it lends credibility to the fact that Prigozhin is
more interested in number one than anything else. If true, it would also lend credibility
to the theory that it was Prigozhin and Wagner itself who launched the Moscow drone attacks.
This would have the benefit of embarrassing the military at a time that many in Russia consider
Wagner the real hero of the war so far. It would also undermine Putin's political position,
especially as the drones were targeting the rich and elite whom Putin fears coming together against
him. The lack of explosive payloads would ensure that nobody got seriously hurt and
the attack was more symbolic than anything- but this detail also actually works against
the theory than for it. If Prigozhin truly wanted to anger the elite Putin needs to keep pacified,
then killing some of them would've been a far better goal than simply
scaring them with drones that crashed into the sides of their buildings.
But the lack of explosive payload also leads directly to a third theory:
this was a Russian false flag attack.
Popular support for the war remains strong inside Russia, but is slowly waning- and
Putin knows that if he wants any chance at winning he's going to need to fully
mobilize his country. This however is likely political suicide, unless he can make Russians
angry enough at Ukraine- or scared enough- to support the ongoing war. This having been a
homegrown operation would explain how the drones were so adept at evading Russian air defenses,
or how they were launched close enough to penetrate deep into Moscow before being
engaged. And this type of operation is not without precedent, Russia doesn't just consider war crimes
against its enemies a valid form of war, it considers war crimes against its own citizens
a valid political tool for enacting policy. In Russia, your vote counts- just kidding,
it totally doesn't- but your dead body counts even more for mobilizing popular support.
However, the targets chosen work against this theory. With drones
apparently targeting wealthy and politically elite Muscovites,
Putin wouldn't be accomplishing much to motivate the rest of Russia society into
supporting the war. The fact that many Russians celebrated the drone strikes is proof of this,
and all a false flag attack like this would do is undermine Putin's control over the elite.
However, it's not entirely impossible that this was still a false flag attack. Putin has famously
acted on bad intelligence before- he launched this entire war on very bad intelligence on
both Ukraine's willingness to fight and the state of his own military. His intelligence
services may have pulled a Russia again and been deeply misinformed about targeting wealthy elites,
angering them against the regime rather than prompting further support from them.
In all likelihood, the drone attack was either carried out by Ukraine, or by a Russian partisan
group with direct Ukrainian support. We'll likely never know until the war is over,
and this along with reams of other classified intelligence is freely shared in the attempt
to document the terrible invasion of Ukraine. What is for sure now though
is that Putin's grip on Russian society is slowly weakening, and each drone attack or
enemy incursion shortens Putin's presidency- and possibly his life span- by one more day.
Now go watch What If World War III Broke Out Between NATO and Russia,
or click this other video instead!