Russia’s war hawks have spent the better part of the past year claiming they’re not losing in Ukraine–they’re just being held back. But now, they claim, the gloves are about to come off.
It’s no longer enough to bomb women and children as they sleep. It’s time to “shoot down [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky’s plane” and “launch missiles at [his] residence in Kyiv,” two Kremlin allies said Wednesday.
A chorus of pro-Kremlin voices is demanding “merciless” revenge after Moscow accused Ukraine of trying to assassinate President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin overnight. Rather than questioning the official version of events—like how on earth two Ukrainian drones could elude all of Russia’s air defenses to strike in the heart of the capital—Russian officials and propagandists alike immediately and angrily demanded that the “real war” now begin.
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“But it’s still not a red line, right? Not a reason to call war a war? To start leading it. Not a reason to shoot down Zelensky’s plane with precision (he was just flying away somewhere). No, of course it’s still not enough,” propagandist Anton Krasovsky bitterly wrote on Telegram.
Pro-Kremlin war correspondent Alexander Kotz said at this point it wouldn’t even be enough to launch missiles at Ukraine’s “decision-making centers” in Kyiv. According to him, Russia must now “eliminate” the “decision makers” personally.
The increasingly unhinged deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, called on the military to “physically eliminate” Zelensky “and his clique.”
“After today’s terrorist attack, there are no options left,” he wrote on Telegram.
“And we’re going to take this? Why isn’t the center of Kyiv right now methodically being turned into ruins?” the neo-Nazi paramilitary group Rusich complained.
Lawmakers were only slightly more restrained in their calls for hellfire against Ukraine.
“This is a real casus belli—reason for war,” wrote Sergei Mironov. “We have something with which to wipe out their bunkers,” he said, calling for the “liquidation” of Ukraine’s government.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the State Duma, said lawmakers will now “demand the use of weapons capable of stopping and destroying the Kyiv terrorist regime.”
Pro-war Russian bloggers began circulating a meme that read: “If you don’t bomb [Ukrainian government headquarters at] Bankova, Bankova will bomb you.”
Suddenly, military bloggers who’ve built their careers by telling Kremlin audiences that Ukraine’s military is weak and incompetent were suddenly fearmongering that the Russian leader himself was now under threat. The U-turn comes not only after the alleged drone attack on the Kremlin—but also after the president’s team reportedly instructed its mouthpieces in the media to hype up the threat posed by Ukraine in order to make any defeat in the war less humiliating.
Ukraine—which saw more than a dozen civilians killed in a Russian strike on Kherson on Wednesday, even as Russians flew into hysterics about drones striking the Kremlin—has denied any involvement in the alleged attack and suggested it might just be part of Moscow’s latest “escalation” of the war ahead of a planned Ukrainian counteroffensive.
“We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow. We fight on our own territory, defending our villages and cities,” Zelensky said in televised comments from Germany, adding that Ukraine doesn’t even have enough weapons to carry out attacks inside Russia.
A Russian expert cited by the Financial Times said the drones might have come from just outside Moscow, and that the low quantity used in the “attack” suggested it was more likely carried out by a partisan movement.
Nonetheless, many saw the drone attack as the start of a new phase in the war. Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, said in a statement on Twitter that it was clear the incident was meant to serve as a pretext for Russia to hit harder against Ukraine and finally appease the pro-war “patriots” cheering on more devastation and death.
“Russia is obviously preparing a large-scale terrorist act.”
