Kremlin ‘lying’ about U.S. involvement in Moscow drone strikes, Kirby says

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was “just lying” when he accused Washington of coordinating drone attacks on Moscow, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Thursday.

“I can assure you that there was no involvement by the United States. Whatever it was, it didn’t involve us,” Kirby said on MSNBC when asked about Peskov’s comments. “We had nothing to do with it. Peskov is just lying there, pure and simple.” On CNN soon after, he called it a “ludicrous claim.”

Peskov’s accusation came after two drones struck Moscow at around 2 a.m. Wednesday in what Russia immediately characterized without evidence as an assassination attempt on Russian President Vladimir Putin by Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied the accusation, and U.S. officials said they had no advanced knowledge of the attacks. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he’d take any claims coming from the Kremlin with a “large shaker of salt.”

“We don’t attack Putin or Moscow,” Zelenskyy told the Nordic broadcaster TV2 during a trip to Finland on Wednesday. “We fight on our territory. We’re defending our villages and cities. We don’t have enough weapons for these.”