Who Was Behind ‘Drone Doolittle Raid’ On The Kremlin?

Russia claims that two drones attacked the Kremlin on Wednesday night. Russian officials condemned the action as an assassination attempt on President Putin, even though he was not there at the time. It looked a lot like the ‘Drone Doolittle raid’ I described a year ago, but President Zelensky quickly insisted that Ukraine was not responsible.

“We don’t attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory. We are defending our villages and cities,” Zelensky told media during a visit to Finland.

Was it a false flag attack as many suspect? An unconfirmed video said to capture the attack shows a drone flying past the dome of the Senate Palace before blowing up. The drone is a small, fixed-wing type. These can be assembled easily from Chinese hobby kits sold online, hence they are nicknamed Alibaba drones and have been a staple of Ukrainian long-range strikes. In particular attack drones based on the $9,500 Mugin-5 have been identified in multiple attacks in the Crimea and elsewhere. The same drones have also been used by Russian forces.

With a flight time of 7 hours, the Mugin-5 has a range of hundreds of miles – exact range depends on how much of the weight is the explosive warhead rather than fuel – so it could have come from anywhere.

And being assembled from imported Chinse parts means even that forensic examination, if this were possible, would not tell us whether a drone was launched by Ukrainians, or, as many suspect, agents of the Russian government. Deniability has long been a feature of drone operations, and proving where a drone came from is often difficult or impossible.

Perhaps the biggest argument against the false flag theory is that it does not benefit Russia. As one Twitter commentator put it: “What are they going to do? Brutally invade Ukraine?”

Russia is already throwing everything it has at Ukraine, including ballistic, ‘hypersonic,’ and cruise missiles, S-300 surface-to-air missile repurposed for ground attack and hundreds of Iranian-made attack drones. Escalation is hardly an option. Putin is insistent that this is merely a ‘special military operation’ rather than a war, and has resisted full-scale mobilization — the previous call-ups have been challenging enough.

Russia has suggested it may retaliate by targeting President Zelensky, but they have been doing that from the start anyway.

There are alternative possibilities to a Ukrainian operation or a false flag.

One is that it may have been launched by a group of Russian saboteurs from inside Moscow. This would be much easier than an attack from Ukrainian soil, as it would not need to pass through Russia’s layered air defence system and would have given very little warning. Anti-Putin groups have previously blown up trains and carried out other acts of resistance. A drone attack, which is cheap, carries low risk, and is impossible to trace, is an obvious tactic. Interestingly, the Russian Duma is drafting laws to stop individuals importing drones, apparently because of fears of just this type of attack.

It does not take any great skill to turn consumer drones into weapons; Mexican drug cartels have been carrying out drone bomb attacks against the police and each other for some years. We are likely to see them used increasingly by insurgents everywhere.

Another, and perhaps more convincing possibility, is that the attack was carried out by an independent Ukrainian group. Ukrainian fintech entrepreneur and drone developer Volodymyr Yatsenko has offered a prize of $500,000 to any Ukrainian drone maker who can land their craft in Red Square in Moscow on May 9^th, the date of Russia’s Victory day celebrations. Yatsenko says his own company’s drones will be joining in, but he will not be eligible for the prize.

Yatsenko suggests that the drones might carry suitable slogans rather than explosives, but they are likely to run into a barrage of anti-aircraft fire, assuming the defenders manage to spot them. And their presence would be a huge humiliation to the Russian military. A drone found outside Moscow on April 24^th was believed to be a trial for a Victory Day intrusion.

The real challenge for Russian air defenses lies ahead. Earlier this year air defenses were places in tactical locations around Moscow, including atop Defense Ministry buildings. Even if the drones were not ordered by Zelensky, and even if they are not armed, they will be a highly visible challenge to Moscow. Air defense famously failed to intercept West German teenager Mathias Rust who landed a light aircraft in Red Square in 1987. And the Kremlin drone attack video – if genuine — suggests they are still failing, despite extensive electronic jammers and other new gear.

Russian officials have pledged to improve Moscow’s defenses. But every anti-aircraft gun and surface-to-air missile brought back to defend the city will be one less to defend airfields, ammunition dumps and fuel depots from long-range drone attacks. It will also weaken the front line where kamikaze drone attacks are a daily occurrence.

This year’s Victory Day events have been canceled in other parts of Russia. Will the military parade go ahead in Moscow on May 9^th, and will it be interrupted by rogue drones? The Kremlin drone strike will have turned a supposed day of celebration into one of anxious sky-watching for many Russians. Whoever was responsible, it looks like a clear win for Ukraine.