russian state media is reporting that two ukrainian drones were flown toward the kremlin last night. again, this is coming from the state-controlled russian media with absolutely no verification at all from the ukrainians or anyone else for that matter, and there are a variety of reasons why a russian claim like this would be advantageous to them which we will get into in a bit. and russia is calling this, though, a terrorist attack and also claiming that it was an attempt to assassinate russian president vladimir putin. we have team coverage on this breaking news for you. nic robertson is in eastern ukraine, nick paton walsh is in dnipro, ukraine, and major general james spider marks is joining us as well. let s start with nic robertson. what else are you picking up? reporter: well, what we re hearing from the ukrainians is they re down playing this, saying this is a trick to be expected from our opponents. they re saying that russia is trying to use this event or purp
possession of nuclear weapons. that came to me from a trusted source inside the presidential administration. so if the kremlin were to take that step and to use nuclear weapons, it would risk alienating the most important ally, china, that it has in the world right now, not to mention the other countries like india and some african countries that may well distance themselves from the kremlin if it went down the nuclear line. clearly, again, this is astonishing scenes from the nighttime in moscow, that explosion taking place on the dome of the grand kremlin palace, again, right in the center of the russian state. matthew, continue on that theme for a second there and i want to make clear this video we ve been showing you, cnn cannot independently verify the veracity of what we ve all been looking at there. so this is circulating on russian social media, there s another view which we ve shown also. the kremlin, is, what, roughly 70 acres, a little bit less than that. describe where thi
official, an adviser to the president s office going a little further in terms of ukraine s define. obviously ukraine has nothing to do with the drone attacks on the kremlin. he also said first of all, it absolutely does not solve any military goals and it very unhelpful in the context of preparing our defensive actions. he says, look, this is essentially ukraine, we re all defending ourselves, we are not involved in attacking russia. an explicit denial of any involvement at all and suggesting, too, that russia may use this to justified its continued attacks upon civilians. it s important to remember that admitting that drones attacked the kremlin whether or not vladimir putin was inside that building or not doesn t come without embarrassment for moscow. they are essentially having to admit that somehow or other a country they thought could attack them they could overrun within three or four days last year in their narrative has somehow managed to launch a drone attack on the seat of
kremlin palace, but it looks to me like they re landing right on top of it. that if i m not mistaken is the grand kremlin palace which is behind the red walls of the citadel, of the kremlin itself. and right at the very center, sort of the literally and symbolically of the russian state. so if that is, indeed, a drone as it looks to be hitting the flag on the top of the grand palace, that is an extraordinary an extraordinary scene to be witnessing and obviously will be seen as horrifying for not just the kremlin and not just the officials of russia but people all around the country that if they believe that they weren t going to be touched by this war, if they believed it was arm s length, well, that is a very potent visual illustration that that is no longer the case. in terms of well, are the kremlin going to use nuclear weapons in response to this, i don t think the calculus necessarily changes.
the facts need to be proved but we are into unprecedented territory after a year of war this is the first public claim we have heard to kill ukraine or russia s center of state. one of the guiding principles in their statement is they say it s okay to use nuclear weapons against conventional weapons, against the russian federation when the existence of the state or military sites of the russian federation. obviously the kremlin would call into that. spider general marks i want to go to you. what do you see here? military intelligence, this is your area, the mind games surrounding all of this. what do you think is going on? well, there certainly is a leap of faith between what has been said and then what actually took place. we ve got to be able to figure that out, right?