Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov MOSCOW, May 05 (AFP): Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday said the alleged drone attack on the Kremlin could not have happened without Washington's awareness and warned Russia would respond with "concrete actions".
"It's clear that without the knowledge of their minders, the terrorists from Kyiv could not have carried out (the attack)," Lavrov said during a visit to India, referring to Washington.
Meanwhile, the White House has denied any involvement in an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin, after Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Washington of guiding Ukraine to launch the assault.
"We had nothing to do with this," said John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, on MSNBC on Wednesday.
"Peskov is just lying there, pure and simple," he added.
Russia alleges that Ukraine carried out a "terrorist attack" overnight Tuesday into Wednesday with two drones, aiming to kill President Vladimir Putin, a charge which Kyiv has denied.
Peskov, Putin's longtime press secretary, said earlier Wednesday that "decisions on such attacks are not made in Kyiv, but in Washington."
"Kyiv only does what it is told to do," he added.
The incident at the Kremlin comes amid several other recent explosions and trail derailments on Russian and occupied Ukrainian territory.
Kirby reiterated in his interview to MSNBC on Wednesday that Washington does not support or condone attacks by Ukraine outside its borders.
"We've been clear with them publicly and we've been clear with them privately that we do not encourage nor do we enable them to strike outside Ukraine," he said.
Earlier, Russian paramilitary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin on Friday threatened to pull his frontline fighters from Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine next week because of ammunition shortages, berating army chiefs in a grisly video.
Prigozhin's Wagner group has spearheaded the grinding, months-long Russian assault on Bakhmut, almost capturing the city in the longest and bloodiest battle of the campaign.
While Prigozhin has made similar threats to pull out in the past, the emotive language used in a video statement and the scathing personal criticism of the leaders of Russia's campaign in Ukraine were unprecedented.
"On May 10, 2023 we will have to hand over our positions in Bakhmut to units of the defence ministry and withdraw Wagner units to rear camps to lick our wounds," Prigozhin said in a written statement on Telegram.
"I will pull out Wagner units from Bakhmut because in the absence of ammunition they are facing a senseless death," he said, adding that he was now expecting a plan from the military on how to implement the withdrawal.
Earlier, Prigozhin posted a video on Telegram showing rows of what he said were dead Wagner fighters in which he blamed Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov for their deaths.
"Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is my fucking ammunition?" Prigozhin said in the video.
"They came here as volunteers and they are dying so you can get fat in your wood-panelled offices," he said, standing by the bodies.
"These guys are from Wagner. They died today. Their blood is still fresh," he said, adding that army chiefs "will go to hell".
"We have an ammunition shortage of 70 per cent," he said in his tirade, in which several expletives were bleeped out.
© 2026 - All Rights with The Financial Express
