Russia blamed the US on Thursday for the apparent drone attack on the Kremlin, doubling down on accusing Washington of “direct involvement” in the war in Ukraine. Dmitri S. Peskov, the spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, repeatedly told reporters in a daily conference call that the US was behind the episode at the Kremlin.

Video footage verified by The New York Times showed two explosions over the Kremlin early on Wednesday, an incident that Russia described as a Ukrainian drone attack on Putin’s Kremlin residence. Ukraine has denied involvement.

Peskov claimed on Thursday that the US bore responsibility for the attack because it provided targeting information to Ukraine. “We know well that the decisions about such actions and such terrorist acts are made not in Kyiv, but in Washington,” Peskov said.

“Kyiv then does what it’s told.” In fact, leaked secret Pentagon documents show that while the American military is indeed providing battlefield targeting data to Ukraine, American officials have worked to dissuade Ukraine from potentially provocative strikes on Moscow.

And American officials admonished Ukraine over the killing in August of Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian ultranationalist. But Peskov insisted that Ukraine’s denial of involvement in Wednesday’s incident at the Kremlin, and the US denial that it had advance knowledge of it, were “laughable”.

New York Times News Service