Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of seeking to frighten the Kremlin after drones hit high-rises in and around Moscow on Tuesday. And the US said that it does not support Ukraine's drone attacks anywhere inside Russia. 

A wave of drone strikes hit the Russian capital. According to state news agency RIA-Novosti, at least one unmanned aerial vehicle struck a residential high-rise's upper floors. The attack took place in southwestern Moscow. A similar attack hit on the 14th floor of an apartment building on one of the city’s main arteries, Leninsky Prospekt.

Ukraine’s drone attacks are retaliation

Ukraine Presidential adviser Ukraine Mykhailo Podolyak denies any involvement in the attacks. And he also made it clear that Russia was getting a dose of its own medicine.

“Of course, we enjoy watching and predicting an increase in attacks,” Podolyak said. “But of course, we have nothing to do directly with it.”

“What is growing in Russia is the karmic payment that Russia will gradually pay in aggravated form for everything it does in Ukraine,” he emphasized.

For weeks in Kyiv, there have been daily drone attacks in the Ukrainian city. And videos would later be released of the damages along with numbers of those killed and wounded. Even though air defenses would catch authorities put out preliminary statements confirming a strike.

Moscow reacts

The Kremlin announced that it reserves the right to take “severe measures” in response to the attacks in Moscow.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin gave updates on Telegram. He said emergency services were on the scene and that only two people were injured. A few hours later, Sobyanin said all the residents that were evacuated from apartment buildings were returning home.

“Everyone worked properly,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. “The air defense system also worked well. Clearly, we are talking here about the Kyiv regime’s response to our very effective strikes on one of [their] decision-making centers.”

According to Russian state news agency TASS UAV expert Denis Fedutinov, speculated that the drone attacks were a test of Russia’s air defenses.

“The aim of the raid was probably to ferret out the Moscow air defenses and reveal their vulnerabilities,” he said.

This attack seems targeted at Russia’s political and economic elite.

 CNN reports that “Some of the drones apparently hit or flew over Rublyovka, a prestigious suburban area in Moscow’s southwest where oligarchs, politicians, and top officials live in luxurious gated communities. The area is also very close to Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo residence where Russian President Putin is known to spend most of his time.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian private military company Wagner turned the occasion into a rant against the Russian Ministry of Defense on social media.

“Why the f*** are you allowing these drones to hit Moscow?” he said. “The fact that they are flying to Rublyovka to your home, to hell with that! Let your houses burn.”

The mercenary military boss has been engaged in a months-long public feud with Russia’s military top brass. And he accused the Russian Defense Ministry of doing “absolutely nothing at all” to modernize Russia’s drones and drone defenses.

“As a person who understands this somewhat, I can tell you that many years ago it was necessary to deal with these [drone] programs – that we are now years behind our opponents, years, maybe decades,” he said.

It appears that Ukraine is mounting a counteroffensive. And on Wednesday drone attacks on Russian soil continued. There were strikes reported on two oil refineries 50 miles from Russia’s crucial Black Sea oil export terminals.