DC Edit | Kremlin strikes hard, but this war has no winners

Explosions rocked cities across Ukraine the day after Russia accused the country of attempting to assassinate President Vladimir Putin with drone strikes aimed at the Kremlin. The effect of a couple of drones getting past several layers of security over Moscow airspace is clearly seen in the escalation of the war in Ukraine with missiles raining down. The cause, however, is the subject of much speculation.

Whether it is true or false about Ukraine getting drones through to as far as the decorative domes of the Kremlin, the incident, even if it seems to be a stage-managed false flag event, is too humiliating for Russia to accept. That it has revealed the explosion of drones to the world points to Russia acting with the intention of upping the ante in its Ukraine offensive.

Any guesswork as to the provenance of the drones, said to be the first aerial strike so close to the Kremlin since World War II, is as good as the other. But the fact that it was always likely to lead to galvanising Russia’s efforts in a war that has just not gone according to script in the 14 months since the generals may have promised a swift takeover of Kyiv is obvious.

Ukraine is on the cusp of mounting a major counteroffensive against Russian troops in a bid to take back occupied land in the south and the east. Mr Putin, who rarely stays in his apartment in the Kremlin of late as per reports, is just getting ready for a major public appearance on Red Square for the celebration of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany that falls on May 9.

All the evidence points to the Kremlin trying to reinvent itself in its war on Ukraine, the biggest in Europe in 78 years since the historic end of World War II. The revanchist dreams of an authoritarian ruler had led to this no-win stalemate for Russia, Ukraine and the rest of the world, large parts of which are short of grains from Ukraine even as everyone suffered an excruciating rise in the cost-of-living index thanks to the war.

When will this madness end is the question that has been exercising the minds of all right-thinking people. But, apparently, even Chinese efforts at bringing the combatants to the table in search of peace have not planted even the seeds of hope though peace talks are the only way to help find a way through the mess that began on February 24, 2022.

The hawks in Russia, smarting from lack of progress as planned in the offensive initiated by one of the world’s great military powers, are not only baying for the blood of the Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but also freely promoting the idea of pressing nuclear weapons into action in Ukraine, as if there can ever be a winner in a nuclear war.

As a revamped attack on Ukraine begins, Mr Putin himself might not be able to rein in the warhorses. If for a moment anyone is prepared to believe that the Russian President was not in the loop of a false flag drone operation, so well timed that cameras could capture every moment and transmit it to the rest of the world and then blame the United States, let them ask themselves, why would anyone send firecracker intensity explosives if they could get that far past Russian missile shields in a no-drone, no-fly zone?