Russian officials claim the U.S. was behind a drone strike on the Kremlin on Wednesday that was intended to kill President Vladimir Putin, but the U.S. has refuted such claims.
A day after blaming Ukraine for the alleged attack, Putin's spokesperson said that Washington had supported it.
It was described as a "ludicrous claim" by U.S. National Security spokesperson John Kirby.
Ukraine has asserted that it had no involvement in the purported strike. At the time, Putin wasn't present in the structure.
Moscow has been charged by Ukraine with orchestrating the event to intensify the conflict.
Although Russian attacks have persisted unabatedly—21 people were killed on Wednesday in the southern Kherson region—there has yet to be any indication that Moscow is stepping up its attacks, BBC reported.
But on Sunday night, a drone was shot down over Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, not too far from the president's residence. Later, officials acknowledged that the object had actually been a Ukrainian drone that had "lost control" and had to be destroyed to prevent "undesirable consequences."
The attack on the Kremlin, a sizable government facility in the heart of Moscow, took place early on Wednesday, according to President Putin's spokesman. Social media videos showed smoke enveloping the complex.
Two men can be seen climbing up the dome while a tiny explosion is visible over the Senate building at the scene in a second video.
On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the U.S. was "undoubtedly" behind the alleged attack, without providing evidence.
"Decisions on such attacks are not made in Kyiv, but in Washington," Peskov said.
Kirby responded, "Peskov is just lying there, pure and simple."
According to the U.S. official, Washington did not support attacks on specific officials and did not promote or facilitate Ukraine's strikes outside of its boundaries.
The supposed strike, according to Ukraine, was a false flag operation by Moscow.
However, many contend that Russia would have little interest in staging an attack that gave the impression that the Kremlin was weak.
"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."
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, visited the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, when the most recent Kremlin assertions were made.
He demanded the establishment of a special court to hold Russia accountable for its "crimes of aggression" in a speech delivered later.
He mentioned claimed war crimes committed by Russia, such as the "millions" of strikes in the eastern Ukrainian area of Donbas and the deaths that occurred during the seizure of Bucha, close to the capital Kyiv, at the start of the country's full-scale Russian invasion last year.
President Putin is the subject of an ICC arrest warrant for alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine. It claims that he committed war crimes during the conflict in Ukraine, including the forcible removal of children from Ukraine to Russia.
Putin "deserves to be sentenced for criminal actions in the capital of international law," the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said.
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