"Ability of Ukrainian, Western friends to lie... " Russia's FM Lavrov on Kremlin drone attack

By Ayushi Agarwal
Panaji (Goa) [India], May 5 : Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday said that Ukraine's denial of its role in the alleged drone attack on the Kremlin is typical of the "ability of our Ukrainian and Western friends to lie."
"The ability of our Ukrainian and Western friends to lie is very well known and the entire situation is illustrating the crisis which is much deeper than just behaviour of regime followed by Zelensky", the Russian Foreign Minister said while responding to a query by ANI at a media briefing here.
Lavrov is visiting India to participate in the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Goa today.
Moscow had on Wednesday accused Kiev of making an unsuccessful attempt to attack the Kremlin and assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"If you believe that as soon as the United States and Ukraine rejected the accusations we should stop thinking what we know about. This is not the case," the Russian Foreign Minister said.
On being asked if the recent attacks were discussed with the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar during his bilateral meeting here, the minister said that "he didn't discuss in detail' and that he knows the "position of India."
"We didn't discuss in detail the terrorist attack against the Kremlin. We know the position of India which is in favour of stopping any provocation and terrorist attacks there is no doubt about this," said Lavrov.
Russia has meanwhile reaffirmed that it reserves the right to take countermeasures on the attack.
It said that two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) had been used in the alleged attack on Putin's residence in the Kremlin citadel, but had been disabled by electronic defences.
"We regard these actions as a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the president's life, carried out on the eve of Victory Day, the May 9 Parade, at which the presence of foreign guests is also planned," the Kremlin said in a statement.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has denied that his country carried out the drone attack on the Kremlin.
"We don't attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory. We are defending our villages and cities," he said during a visit to Finland.
On Thursday, the United States too dismissed Russia's allegation that Washington was behind what it said was a drone attack on the Kremlin, terming Moscow's assertion was a lie.
"Obviously it's a ludicrous claim," White House national security spokesman John Kirby said hours after Russia blamed the United States for what it called an attack aimed at killing President Vladimir Putin.
"The United States has nothing to do with it. We don't even know exactly what happened here, but I can assure you the United States had no role in it whatsoever," Kirby said on CNN.