Faced with drone attacks on Moscow, the impassivity of Vladimir Putin and the phlegm of the Russians
The situation had to be serious for Vladimir Putin to break his silence. The Russian leader, who no longer comments on any facts related to the war in Ukraine, and even less on bad news, ended up speaking almost hotly on the major drone attack that targeted the Russian capital on Tuesday, May 30 .
Mr Putin was visiting an event dedicated to “creative economy”, in Moscow. According to exiled journalist Farida Rustamova, a specialist in the mysteries of the Kremlin, the president’s advisers had to insist on convincing him that it was impossible to say nothing, even if this development seemed minor to him in view of the stakes. “historical” that focus his attention.
Moreover, Vladimir Putin could not prevent himself, during this brief, apparently spontaneous exchange with an entrepreneur, from expounding on the roots of the conflict and the misdeeds of the disappearance of the Soviet Union. For the rest, the head of the Kremlin accused Ukraine – which denies any responsibility in the attack – of seeking to “terrify Russia” by “terrorist methods”when Moscow would simply strike in Ukraine “only military targets with high-precision weapons”.
The Russian president has above all endeavored to reassure his population, by presenting this attack as a non-event. The anti-aircraft defense systems installed in the capital functioned “normal, satisfactory”he pointed out, going so far as to compare the incident with the harmless attacks suffered in 2018 and 2019 by the Russian army on the Hmeimim air base in Syria.
The rest of the article by Benoît Vitkine, our correspondent in Moscow, can be read below: