Chris Lange, FISM News
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Officials in both Moscow and Kyiv reported attacks early on Tuesday. Russia said Ukrainian-launched drones targeted its capital in what one politician called the worst attack since World War Two.
Meanwhile, Kyiv officials reported what they said was the third Russian airstrike in a 24-hour period.
Reuters cited unverified reports that an air raid targeted some of the wealthiest sections of Moscow, including an area where President Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin elites have homes. The reports came weeks after Russia claimed to have shot down two Ukrainian-launched drones over the Kremlin, though Kyiv denied involvement.
A video showing the moment a drone reportedly struck the village of Ilinskoye near Putin’s residence in Novo-Ogarevo was circulated social media Tuesday as well as one purporting to show an unmanned aerial vehicle exploding in the air, presumably shot down by Russian air defenses.
Kremlin lawmaker Maxim Ivanov warned citizens that they could no longer avoid “the new reality” following what he called the worst assault on Russia since the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
“You will either defeat the enemy as a single fist with our Motherland, or the indelible shame of cowardice, collaboration and betrayal will engulf your family,” he said.
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak denied that Kyiv was directly involved in targeting Moscow, though he said that “we are pleased to watch.”
Ukrainian defense forces in Kyiv said Tuesday that they shot down more than 20 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia. One person died and four were injured when debris from a destroyed projectile slammed into a Kyiv apartment building that engulfed the top two floors in flames, they said.
Overall, Kyiv said that four people were killed in attacks throughout Ukraine Tuesday, with 34 wounded including two children.
Tuesday’s attack on Ukraine’s capital marked the 17th so far this month in what one Ukrainian official said was part of a Russian campaign to degrade Ukrainians’ will to fight after more than 15 months of war.
“These missile attacks of a fairly dense frequency are aimed specifically at exhausting both our air defense forces and our physical and moral strength,” Natalya Gumenyuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern military command, said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday credited U.S.-supplied Patriot anti-missile defense systems with a 100% interception rate.
“When Patriots in the hands of Ukrainians ensure a 100% interception rate of any Russian missile, terror will be defeated,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
UKRAINE MAKES RARE ADMISSION OF TARGET DAMAGE FOLLOWING STRIKE ON AIR BASE
A top official in Ukraine’s Khmelnitskiy region in the west said Monday that repairs were underway to restore a runway and confirmed that five aircraft were taken out of service following a Russian attack overnight.
“At the moment, work is continuing to contain fires in storage facilities for fuel and lubricants and munitions,” the Khmelnitskiy regional governor’s office said in a rare acknowledgment of damage to a military “target” coming out of Ukraine.
Russia’s defense ministry said that more than one air base had been hit in the attack, per Russian state-owned news agency RIA. Kyiv made no reference to possible damage at other air bases.
GRAHAM CALLS RUSSIAN ARREST WARRANT ‘BADGE OF HONOR’
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.-S.C.) appeared to take the news that Russia issued a warrant for his arrest in stride. The Republican Senator said in a statement on Monday that he would “wear the arrest warrant issued by Putin’s corrupt and immoral government as a Badge of Honor.”
The Kremlin issued the warrant after a stitched-together video clip of Friday’s meeting between President Zelenskyy and the South Carolina Senator in Kyiv surfaced on social media that appeared to show the Grahm cheering on the deaths of Russian soldiers.
“Russians are dying … Best money we’ve spent,” a caption of the edited video read.
“Here’s an offer to my Russian ‘friends’ who want to arrest and try me for calling out the Putin regime as being war criminals: I will submit to jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court if you do. Come and make your best case. See you in The Hague!” Graham said in the statement. He joked in a tweet that, while he didn’t expect to appear in a Russian court anytime soon, he already had a legal representative.
🇺🇸💰 Talking about the American support to Ukraine, the USA Senator Lindsay Graham says to Zelensky: “Russians are dying…Best money we’ve spent" pic.twitter.com/kJL95ISbAE
— Frontline Politics (@FrontlinePol) May 28, 2023
“Good news: While I don’t expect to be tried by Russia anytime soon, I found the services of a great lawyer who works cheap. Sen. Blumenthal, my good friend from Connecticut who has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, has offered to be my lawyer,” Graham wrote in the tweet. Bad news: like every other dissident voice, I [don’t] like my chances of getting a fair trial. Stay tuned.
Some Russians are calling for Graham’s assassination. Margarita Simonyan, the chief editor of Russian state broadcaster RT, said on Sunday that Russia may need to call on the help of “sons or grandchildren” of Pavel Sudoplatov, a Soviet spy who was involved in the assassination of the Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky.
Graham has been an outspoken supporter of U.S. military aid for Ukraine throughout the conflict.