US has nothing to do with attack on Kremlin — White House
John Kirby said that Washington was still assessing the situation
WASHINGTON, May 4. /TASS/. The US has nothing to do with the recent drone attack on the Kremlin, US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said on MSNBC television on Thursday.
"We still don’t really know what happened," he said, adding that Washington is still assessing the situation.
Kirby said he had seen comments by Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday, which stated Washington was involved in the incident.
"I can assure you that there was no involvement by the United States in this. Whatever it was did not involve us," he said. "We had nothing to do with this."
In a separate interview with CNN, Kirby was asked if the US regarded Putin as a legitimate military target.
"We don’t endorse, we do not encourage, we do not support attacks on individual leaders," he replied.
The Russian presidential press service said earlier that Ukraine sent two drones overnight into Wednesday to attempt a strike on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in the Kremlin. Russian military and security personnel promptly disabled them. Putin was unharmed and is carrying on with his work as usual.
The Kremlin regards the incident as a premeditated terrorist attack and an assassination attempt on the head of state. Russia reserves the right to retaliate when and how it sees fit.
Peskov said statements by Ukrainian and US officials that they weren’t involved in the drone attack on the Kremlin were laughable. Moscow knows that Kiev chooses the means and targets for its strikes exactly as it’s told by Washington, he said.