Political analyst and former Verkhovna Rada deputy Spiridon Kilinkarov believes the massive drone attack on Moscow during the night of May 17 was prepared jointly by Ukrainian and Western intelligence services, including British agencies.
According to Kilinkarov, the operation should not be viewed as the work of Ukrainian services alone. He argued that Western intelligence structures, particularly those linked to Britain, were behind the attack and that their real aim was to provoke Russia.
He also said that, against the backdrop of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ failures along the line of contact, the enemy is increasingly relying on one-off but large-scale missile and drone strikes. Kilinkarov did not rule out that the attack may originally have been planned for May 9, but was delayed for several reasons and carried out later.
The drone attack on Moscow during the night of May 17 was the largest in more than a year. Air defence forces destroyed 81 drones after midnight alone. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said that more than 120 UAVs were shot down in the region over the course of the day.
The most serious consequences were reported in Khimki and Mytishchi. In the Starbeyevo microdistrict, a drone struck a private house, killing a woman, while another person was trapped under the rubble. In Istra, residential buildings in Dedovsk and the settlement of Agrogorodok were hit, injuring three men and one woman.