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The only indisputable fact about what happened on Wednesday in the Kremlin is that there were two explosions around 2:30 a.m. on top of Russia’s most important political and cultural symbol, and both Moscow and Ukraine reacted with anger.
But whose anger is real and whose is fake?
In this battle, the battle over the narrative is as important as the battle on the ground. While the Kremlin often lies and uses its powerful government-controlled media to create an alternative reality, Ukraine has also proven capable of bending the truth to serve its war agenda.
Cutting through competing narratives to get the truth can prove to be a difficult thing, and that is perhaps the point. Both parties will gain while their intentions and methods remain hidden by the fog.
Was the drone strike seen as a bold but largely symbolic move by Ukraine aimed at embarrassing President Vladimir V. Putin as he prepares to lead the annual Victory Day Parade in Red Square next week? Are Russian provocations being carried out to justify a more severe attack on the Ukrainian population, or perhaps against the Ukrainian leadership?
Or executed not by the government, but by local Russian partisans who opposed the war, or rogue Ukrainian saboteurs?
Russia has angrily accused Ukraine of trying to assassinate Mr Putin in a drone strike, and has asserted its right to retaliate.
On Thursday, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said repeatedly in a conference call with reporters that the United States had ordered the attack, without providing any evidence. “We know very well that decisions about these actions and these terrorist actions are not made in Kiev, but in Washington,” he said.
US officials deny any involvement. On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” John F. Kirby, communications chief for the White House National Security Council, said, “Peskov is just there, pure and simple.”
Ukraine also denies trying to attack the Kremlin and accuses Moscow of basically creating provocative incidents to rally domestic support and justify escalation.
A Ukrainian attack on the seat of the Russian government would be an audacious act. But the Kremlin did not say anything about it for 12 hours.
When the press service finally asked to accuse Ukraine, they did so in great detail, showing that they wanted the episode to get maximum public exposure.
That led to public disapproval in Kyiv, as well as some private heads from Ukrainian officials who are usually quick to wink and nod to show their association with a daring and creative covert operation. They note that the explosion is too small to accomplish much.
“Beautiful, but ineffective, unfortunately,” one senior Ukrainian official said when asked about the attack shortly after the Kremlin issued a statement. “Now I don’t know who did it. It doesn’t seem to be his own.”
Someone knows what happened, but no one is talking right now. More than a day later, there is no new information that can clarify who is behind the explosion, but that does not prevent inflammatory statements and wild speculation.
On Thursday, Russian officials continued their downward spiral. The foreign ministry issued a lengthy statement, saying those guilty of what it called a “terrorist attack” would face “severe and irreversible punishment.” And Mr. Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, said without providing evidence that the United States was behind the attack.
In this case, Ukraine and Russia each had the means and motive to carry out the attack.
In more than 14 months of war, Ukraine has become adept at brazen actions with heavy symbolic significance. Last spring’s attack that destroyed Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, did nothing to slow Russia’s ongoing offensive in Ukraine, but it was a major setback for the Russian military.
Last summer’s explosion at the only bridge linking Russian territory to the occupied Crimean Peninsula briefly slowed the transport of military supplies, but dealt another embarrassing blow to Mr. Putin, whose forces have failed to protect key strategic assets far from the front lines.
Ukraine has spent the war developing deadly drones that have terrorized troops on the battlefield and struck far from enemy lines. Last December, Ukraine sent an explosives-modified drone hundreds of miles into Russian territory for attacks on two military bases that destroyed planes and killed several soldiers.
In these and other cases, Ukrainian officials have not publicly held themselves accountable, although they often do not deny their country’s involvement. Without a record, senior officers will sometimes admit that their troops have been involved.
Wednesday’s episode is different. Top officials from Mr. Zelensky down issued direct and unequivocal denials.
“Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with the drone attack on the Kremlin,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president. “It really doesn’t make sense. It provides no military, informational, or tactical effects in the event of an attack.
The swift and emphatic rejection may have had some meaning, but what that meaning was remains open to speculation.
Mr Podolyak suggested that the explosion was actually a “false flag” operation by the Kremlin – intended to make it look like Ukraine was at fault – to justify a potential large-scale attack aimed at undermining a Ukrainian counterattack.
He did not explain why Moscow needed such justification. Mr. Putin’s military has launched mass attacks and massacres of civilians since the beginning of the war without feeling the need to make elaborate excuses.
Mr Zelensky contrasted the explosion in the Kremlin, which Mr Putin’s press service called a terrorist attack, with Russian military attacks on Ukrainian cities the same day. While Russian officials said the blasts in Moscow caused no injuries, Mr Zelensky showed gruesome photos of dead civilians after a Russian attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, which killed at least 23 people in a grocery store and train station, among others -apart. civilian targets.
“We will not forgive the perpetrators,” Mr Zelensky said in a post on Instagram. “We will defeat the evil state and bring to justice all the perpetrators.”
The Kremlin, of course, is good at lying and never hides from promoting lies.
Mr. Putin said the justification for the invasion – that Ukraine was ruled by a Nazi junta committed to violence against Russia – was fabricated. Last week, a Russian state television report detailing a Ukrainian attack on a Russian-held city used actual footage from a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Uman, which killed more than 20 people.
Russia uses these distortions to promote an alternative reality that justifies its actions in the war, both for its people and its allies, experts say.
Already, Russian officials have used the Kremlin incident to demand reprisals. Dmitri Medvedev, the bombastic former president of Russia and now the deputy chairman of the security council of the Russian Federation – who often voices the most extreme version of the potential Russian action – said that the explosion justified the “physical elimination” of the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky and “his group.” He sprinkled in a Hitler reference for good measure.
Explaining the 12-hour gap between the explosion and the Kremlin’s announcement, Mr. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said there was a need for the Russian spy service to conduct an investigation first. Mr. Putin was working in the Kremlin on Thursday, Mr. Peskov said, and would not make a specific statement about the explosion.
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