The Ukrainian secret service, according to a Bild investigation, attempted to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin with a kamikaze drone on Sunday. Although the assassination attempt failed, the Russian authorities are keeping the attempt a secret.
The UJ-22 drone took off in Ukraine on Sunday afternoon, and as reported by Bild and Nova, according to Blic, it is the most modern Ukrainian drone with a medium range of up to 800 kilometers. Their target was reportedly a newly built industrial park near Moscow, which is located 500 kilometers from Ukraine.
Ukrainian activist Yuriy Romanenko, who is said to have close ties to Kiev's intelligence services, was quoted as saying that “last week, the intelligence services received information about Putin's trip to the Rudnevo Industrial Park. Accordingly, our kamikaze drone took off, which flew through all the air defenses of the Russian Federation and crashed not far from the industrial park."
Indeed, several Russian media reported the crash of a UJ-22 drone near the village of Voroskogo, east of Moscow. The site of the accident is about 20 kilometers east of the Rudnevo Industrial Park.
The footage shows that the drone contained 30 blocks of C4 explosives weighing a total of 17 kilograms. M112 explosives are used by, among others, the US Army and the Canadian Armed Forces.
Putin's personal Kremlin correspondent Pavel Zarubin said Sunday morning that the president plans to "visit an industrial park in Moscow." When that visit was to take place, he did not say.
Russian bystanders posted photos of the Rudnevo industrial park on Sunday afternoon, showing the gray lawn in front of the main building splattered with green paint, reports Bild.
However, it is not clear whether the Russian head of state wanted to visit the industrial park on Sunday or only on Monday - for security reasons, Putin's visits are sometimes held a day before they are announced. Also, it's very possible that reporting his duplicate is just another form of security protection.
Therefore, Ukraine could not determine the date of the visit: whether it will take place "at the beginning of the week", on Sunday or Monday.
Obviously, Putin wasn't there. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday: “Russian President Vladimir Putin works in the Kremlin. The head of state does not plan important public events."
