Reuters
- Pro-Putin hardliners called for Russia to assassinate Ukraine's president.
- It followed Russia's claim Ukraine launched a drone attack on the Kremlin.
- Ukraine denied it was behind the attack, which some analysts said was likely a "false flag."
Hardline allies of Russian president Vladimir Putin have called for revenge attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the wake of what Russia claims was a Ukrainian drone strike on the Kremlin.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president and currently the hawkish deputy head of the Security Council, called for the military to "physically eliminate" Zelenskyy "and his clique" in a message posted on Telegram.
"After today's terrorist attack, there are no options left," he wrote, and went on to compare Ukraine's government to Nazis in World War 2.
Propagandist Anton Krasovsky complained that the Kremlin had been too restrained in its response, and urged it to shoot down Zelenskyy's plane, The Daily Beast reported.
"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," he wrote on Telegram.
Putin allies in the Duma, the Russian lower legislature, also called for strikes against the Ukrainian government.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Duma, called for "the use of weapons capable of stopping and destroying the Kyiv terrorist regime," reported The AFP.
Russia on Wednesday accused Ukraine of launching the drone strikes as part of a bid to assassinate Putin.
Unverified footage circulating on social media showed what appeared to be a drone exploding on the dome of one of the buildings in the Kremlin, the fortified citadel in Moscow that is the center of the Russian government.
Zelenskyy rejected the allegations, saying that Ukraine was too busy defending its own territory from Russian invaders.
"We don't attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory. We are defending our villages and cities," he said, according to Reuters.
The US has cast doubt on Russia's claim Ukraine was behind the Kremlin attack, with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken remarking at a Washington Post event Wednesday that he'd "take anything coming out of the Kremlin with a very large shaker of salt."
Some analysts believe that the attack may have been a "false flag," or staged by Russia to justify a retaliatory response.
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/2PeYwSZ
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