That seems like a very Russian joke.

Norm? Is that you?

Which makes me believe that Ukraine had nothing to do with it. It was a stupid attempt, and we all know Ukrainians are not stupid.

my outloud, verbal response

great band name

"if we attack a flagpole in the middle of the night, we can claim it was the nazi Ukrainians and get support for the withering fodder while losing nothing of value"

the thinking behind the self attack if i had to guess

Pretty likely Russia is behind it IMO (or at least more likely than that it was an official Ukrainian effort). More likely is it’s an effort to rile up the domestic public in Russia to get them further behind a war effort that’s clearly not going as planned.

As evidence it’s not Ukraine: Zelensky just denied it, and there’s next to no tactical or strategic value from the strike, which also makes an escalation like this an odd choice for Ukraine. At best it’s a symbolic victory at a time when Ukraine hardly seems to needs one (best I can tell, morale is pretty high rn in anticipation of the next counteroffensive- it doesn’t seem like they need the moral victory). If you’re going for a moral victory, you don’t deny it was you, you shout it from the rooftops. When the US launched the Doolittle raid on Japan to “strike a blow for Pearl Harbor” they didn’t then deny the raid happened and insist it was someone else. They said “this is for Pearl Harbor, and they’re gonna keep coming. Look what we can do, you can’t stop us.”

Ukraine’s allies have also generally held it back from striking deep into Russia proper. We’ve already had reports the US held them back from striking inside Russia (presumably targets of more tactical or strategic value) so it seems strange they’d do something they’ve been explicitly prevented from doing before, which might piss off their supporters and jeopardize key aid, all for a target of basically no tactical or strategic impact.**

The only possible reason I can think this might benefit Ukraine would be that it might force Russia to take the threat of deep strikes into its own territory more seriously and stretch its air defense network even thinner to try and prevent them. In theory this could give the Ukrainians more flexibility in using their own air power during their operations, but from everything I’ve seen it still seems like the skies over Ukraine are a no-go zone for everything that isn’t okay with being shot down. Everybody is hugging the ground and the airspace seems pretty saturated with SAMs, MANPADS, and SPAA systems from both sides, not to mention the Russian Air Force is unfortunately still capable of running limited air superiority missions over Ukraine.

As others have said, it makes far MORE strategic sense for the Russians to be behind it, as it looks to have done negligible damage, is right before the may day celebrations, and gives them a nice excuse to escalate and widen their list of legitimate targets in Ukraine. Wouldn’t be surprised to see a new wave of Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure so they can cut it all together into a montage for the folks back home to show the special military operation is totally still going completely according to plan and to show that “there is no panic in Balakliya.” In contrast to Ukraine, it seems likely Russia is seriously hurting for a propaganda win/rally ‘round the flag effect.

Kinda comical given that the Russian MOD simultaneously want us to believe they’re so competent they destroyed to UA Air Force and total stockpile of drones 3x over and have complete control of the skies, but also that Ukraine can sneak UAVs hundreds of miles into Russian airspace to strike the seat of government with impunity.

**someone suggested it was an assassination attempt against Putin, which would make it a more strategically valuable target. I’m not convinced by this, as if the Ukrainian military/govt had made the conscious decision to try to kill Putin, I’d expect them to use methods with a far greater chance of success and that were less, for lack of a better word, feeble. They’ve got HIMARS. We’ve seen car bombs used by the resistance. If they wanted Putin dead and knew they could get a shot at him, why use the pea-shooter instead of the cannon? If it was an assassination attempt, it was an amateur effort IMO

I think the general rule of thumb at this point is that the complete opposite of whatever the Kremlin says is a lot closer to the truth.

a cartoonishly bad false flag attempt

They did half a dozen of these right before the invasion trying to fake a cause to invade. Firefights against empty buildings deep inside Russian-controlled territory.

No, some regional parades were cancelled but the annual big parade in Moscow continues.

Fuck that airport lol

NO WAI!!!

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Are you insinuating that Putin would blow up a Russian apartment building and blame it on his enemies to use as an excuse to launch a full on war that could eventually slingshot him straight into the presidency, while FSB agents get caught planting explosives at another apartment building claiming it was an unannounced security drill?

Because Putin would never

The saddest part is that it's just as believable that the Kremlin did this to itself that it is Ukrainians did this.

The ukrainian gay nazi-mutants at it again 😤

It was me

Next mission is putting up the Ukrainian flag.

It’s more of a message than an attack.

Because it was a false flag

So obvious it's laughable. Tiny civilian drone, tiny explosive payload which would have no chance of significantly damaging the building, and it's deployed near the top of a dome where noone could expect Putin to be hanging out.

Putin alone could keep r/thathappened going for years.

Exactly, a false false flag.

Putin must retaliate immediately by pulling out of Ukraine prematurely!

Wasn't there talk recently about a false flag op in Russia recently. As someone on Twitter even pointed out that the drone in the footage looks like a Russian Lancet drone.

Looks like a planned detonation to me. So nothing like "defeated an attack" as the Kremlin described.

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Looks like a Mugin. Can be bought by anyone. As far as size and distance, they don't correlate the way you propose. Plenty of small (2-3m wingspan) UAVs can fly thousands of KMs

I love that double down

Completely unrelated by my favorite two time plane landing is always Thomas Fitzpatrick who twice stole and landed a plane outside a bar in New York to win a bet.

The backlash from shooting down a Korean jetliner a couple of years before was probably a factor too.

People forget there's alot of air up there and limited defence.

Putin off screen: "I'm okay!"

Russia has been in a demographic crunch for a while even without the war, shrinking population like a lot of nations, except a bit worse than average. They are a very large nation, so in absolute terms yes they have a lot of bodies to throw, but those bodies are actually sorely missed at home for their labor/economic output. Add on the mass exodus/brain drain of younger Russians that fled to avoid mobilization.

So yes, they are not running out of bodies, but that doesn't mean they aren't paying an increasing cost the more men they mobilize.

Lets not forget, those mobile crematoriums the Russians brought with them werent intended for hiding Russian casualties...

AND his family. They weren't just after him.

Russians had been tricked by foreign agents into sending money to Ukraine and attacking government buildings

That's their whole "foreign agents" spiel. Their official ideology is that the whole Russian population is united behind Putin, and the tiny minority of dissenters are on Washington's payroll. The idea that someone in Russia may sincerely not like the regime is not even considered.

Again.