British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly affirmed Ukraine’s right to attack “legitimate military targets” in Russia, in contrast with American unease about such operations on the day of an apparent drone attack near Moscow.
“It’s important to remember that Ukraine does have the legitimate right to defend itself,” Cleverly told reporters while traveling in Estonia. “It has a legitimate right to do so within its own borders, of course, but it does also have the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself.”
DEBT LIMIT DEAL: WHERE IT STANDS AND WHAT IS STILL TO COME
That general endorsement came as Russian media buzzed with the shock of an apparent kamikaze drone attack that “caused minor damage to several buildings,” according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Cleverly emphasized that he could not comment on the drone incident — “I don’t have details, and I am not going to speculate about the nature of the drone attacks in Moscow,” he said — but his supportive tone contrasted with the response from President Joe Biden’s administration.
“As general matter, we do not support attacks inside of Russia,” a State Department spokesperson said Tuesday. “We have been focused on providing Ukraine with the equipment and training they need to retake their own sovereign territory, and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
A series of explosions startled residents of suburban Moscow early Tuesday morning as Russian air defense systems reportedly intercepted a barrage of kamikaze drones. The incident prompted a cascade of Russian threats as well as criticism of the government from Russia’s most ardent war hawks, such as Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group‘s leader who has made a habit of denouncing the Russian Defense Ministry.
“You are the Ministry of Defense! … Why the f*** are you allowing the arrival of these [drones] to Moscow?” Prigozhin said in an audio message translated by the War Translated project. “As a citizen, I’m deeply outraged that these scumbags calmly sit on their fat a**es smeared with expensive creams. … I warned about it many times. But no one wants to listen, because I’m mad, and I frustrate the bureaucrats who have wonderful lives.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the air defense systems a “satisfactory” grade for their response to the drones, which caused no casualties.
“This is obviously a clear sign of terrorist activity,” Putin said, according to War Translated’s rendering of his comments. “And we are not using the methods that the Ukrainian bigwigs are using. And the attack on civilian facilities in Moscow is another proof of it.”
Russia bombarded Ukraine’s energy grid throughout the winter, a campaign that one of Putin’s top lieutenants explained was intended to force Ukraine into making territorial concessions. “Then the power supply situation will get better,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a senior member of the Kremlin Security Council, said in November.
Those attacks continue, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team acknowledged while expressing Washington’s discomfort with Ukrainian attacks in Russia.
“Today was also Russia’s 17th round of air strikes on Kyiv this month, many of which have devastated civilian areas, as Russia continues its brutal attacks against the people of Ukraine,” the State Department spokesperson said.
Russia’s paramilitary power centers offered divergent responses to the attack. Whereas Prigozhin took the opportunity to fume at defense officials, Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, a longtime Putin crony whose family came to power in Chechnya during the Second Chechen War, echoed Putin’s “terrorist” accusation while threatening to retaliate against Ukraine’s neighboring European states.
“They are using terrorist methods and are, therefore, terrorists,” Kadyrov said, per state-run media outlet TASS. “It will backfire when Russia knocks on the doors of, for example, Germany or Poland. There will be nothing to respond with — all the weapons have been spent on Ukraine.”
Some Russian authorities reportedly took the incident as a dispiriting portent that the war would disturb Russian citizens far removed from the front lines.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I think we will have to live with this for quite a long time,” the Moscow Times quoted a senior Russian official as saying. “The conflict with Ukraine is dragging on.”
Cleverly, in any case, added that British military equipment is used to attack Russian forces in Ukraine, rather than targets in Russia. “I don’t have details, and I am not going to speculate about the nature of the drone attacks in Moscow,” he said. “What we have seen, of course, what we have done is support Ukraine to defend itself within its own borders. And we will happily continue to do so.”
