Kremlin officials said Ukraine’s allies should have condemned the strike, and argued again that its real war was with the West by Anatoly Kurmanaev.
A day after a drone strike on Moscow, Kremlin officials jumped on the refusal of Ukrainian allies to denounce the attack as proof that Russia’s real war was with the West.
The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said Russia “would have preferred to hear at least some words of condemnation” from Western capitals.
“We will calmly and deliberately think how to deal with this,” he said.
While none of Ukraine’s allies went so far as to endorse the drone attack, Britain’s foreign secretary said on Tuesday that Kyiv had “the right to project force beyond its borders.”
The U.S. response was more circumspect, but it stopped short of criticizing the first military strike to hit civilian areas in the Russian capital since the start of the war. Ukraine officials have said they were not “directly involved” in the drone strike.
From the outset of the conflict, Russia has portrayed the invasion of Ukraine as a defensive war provoked by the West, and on Wednesday it seized on the attack.
Dmitri A. Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s national security council and a former president, said Britain “de facto is leading an undeclared war against Russia” by providing Ukraine with military aid and called it “our eternal enemy.”
Known since the war began for staking out extreme positions, Mr. Medvedev argued that now any British official “can be considered as a legitimate military target.”
The Russian ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, called the U.S. refusal to condemn the attack “an encouragement for Ukrainian terrorists,” his embassy said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia has repeatedly hit civilian areas of Ukraine over the course of the war, though it has denied targeting non-military sites. And in recent weeks it has turned up the barrage of missiles and attack drones aimed at Kyiv, the capital. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians, including children, have been killed in Russian airstrikes and artillery bombardments, U.N. officials say.
The State of the War
Moscow Drone Attack: Explosions were reported in Moscow, with Russia’s Defense Ministry saying that at least eight drones had targeted the capital and the surrounding region. The attack was the first strike to hit civilian areas in Moscow since the start of the war.
Kyiv Attacks: Russia targeted the Ukrainian capital with drone attacks and a barrage of missiles that sent residents running for shelter as explosions echoed across the city.
Ukraine’s Counteroffensive: Ukraine’s top military commander signaled that the nation’s forces were ready to launch their long-anticipated counteroffensive after months of preparations.
Putin’s Strategy: President Vladimir Putin of Russia looks like a commander in absentia, treating the war as unfortunate but distant. His options have narrowed, but he is still betting on outlasting his foes.
Though the drone strike on Tuesday was unusual, it was not the first one on Russian soil since the war began. Drones have hit military air bases deep inside Russia, as well as an oil facility near an airfield in the province of Kursk. And this month, drones exploded over the Kremlin.
The incursions continued on Wednesday, when, the Russian authorities said, Ukrainian drones attacked two oil refineries in the region of Krasnodar. They also said that four people had been injured by shelling in the border region of Belgorod.
Russia has long accused the West of waging a proxy war against it. Those claims grew louder this month when a group of Ukraine-based Russian paramilitary members staged a multiday raid in Russia’s Belgorod border region — apparently with U.S. armored vehicles.
A New York Times analysis found that at least three of what appeared to be American-made MRAPs had been part of the attack. A leader of one of the groups claimed the weapons had not been provided by the Ukrainian military.
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Christopher F. Schuetze, Michael Crowley and Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting.
Anatoly Kurmanaev is a foreign correspondent covering Russia’s transformation after its invasion of Ukraine. More about Anatoly Kurmanaev
A version of this article appears in print on June 1, 2023, Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: Russia Denounces West’s Refusal to Condemn Drone Strike on Moscow. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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