5/6/23
Russian TV pundit and military expert Vladislav Shurygin called for inciting violent attacks on the White House in response to the recent drone attack on the Kremlin.
A clip from a Russian TV segment posted to Twitter on Friday with English subtitles by BBC Monitoring reporter Francis Scarr showed Shurygin explaining how Russia should have responded to the attack.
His remarks come after two drones hit the Kremlin in Moscow early Wednesday morning. A small explosion of the drone above the building’s domed roof was caught on video that circulated online, according to CNN. It remains unclear who is responsible for the attempted strike, but Russia accused Ukraine of the “terrorist attack” and trying to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, which Kyiv denied.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country wouldn’t attack Putin or Moscow, adding that Ukraine doesn’t have “enough weapon[s] for this.” Meanwhile, there has been speculation that the Kremlin likely staged the attack to justify future mobilization efforts of Putin’s troops in the war in Ukraine. However, others believe such a move would be too humiliating for the Russian leader.
Russia also alleged that the United States directed the drone attack, which John Kirby, the National Security Council’s Coordinator for Strategic Communications, called “ridiculous,” according to CNN. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. doesn’t know who is behind the strike, and told The Washington Post on Wednesday, “I would take anything coming out of the Kremlin with a very large shaker of salt.”
During his TV appearance, Shurygin suggested ways in which the Kremlin should respond to the attack.
“Certainly to be honest in this case, I am a militarist as always and the responses from our foreign ministry always gives me toothache. Because I believe we should act in an entirely different way and that for a long time, more than the country has needed the foreign ministry, it’s needed [former lieutenant general from the Soviet-era] Pavel Sudoplatov who in this case would have responded appropriately and directly,” he said, whose name is on on Ukraine’s sanctions list for justifying the Russia’s invasion and distorting information about the war, according to War & Sanctions.
Shurygin then suggested that Russia should react to the drone attack by pushing some “group of Black Panthers” to “suddenly hit the White House with something,” adding that by doing so, they would be taking revenge of “centuries of African slavery.” The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) was founded in 1966 to advocate for Black nationalism and armed self-defense against police brutality. It then dissolved in 1982 partially because of differences within the group.
“That would be the correct way to respond, you know. Everything else is just words,” he said, adding that “when they realize the roof of the White House is burning, they’ll think more about whether to control their Ukrainian dogs.”
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Wednesday that the drone strike might have been conducted internally and staged by Russia “to bring the war home to a Russian domestic audience and set conditions for a wider societal mobilization.”
Meanwhile, David Silbey, associate professor of history at Cornell University, told Newsweek on Thursday that the purported strike “could be a Russian false flag operation” to justify further Russian mobilization efforts.
“They’ve already tried assassinating Zelensky. The same logic of deterrence with nuclear weapons still applies,” he said in emailed comments.
Ukraine is currently preparing for its expected spring counteroffensive to take back its territories that have been occupied by Russia since the war began last February. The country’s military capabilities have been bolstered by Western aid in recent months, which included advanced military equipment, tanks, and artillery.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian foreign affairs ministry and the White House for comment.
A real president would go in front of the cameras and announce the shipment of 100 ATACMS to Ukraine as a direct response to this call for violence against us. Indeed, we should hand over very effective kit each time mafia land threatens with nukes or misbehaves in any other way. But, we have a Biden as POTUS. He didn’t even make mafia land suffer for downing one of our drones. We hear only crickets from the Yellow House … and I call it crickets when Kirby or someone else gives only a lame statement.
Any normal country would have TV pundits asking how two very small drones, flew over 1000km, evaded every russian air defense then landed at the Kremlin.
That is true. But, we are talking about mafia land.
It is interesting to see every day the Moskali keep trying to sell the idea that they are fighting against the USA, Europe and NATO. This is the reason I sadly didn’t advocate for NATO intervention because it would have elevated Vladolf. And cost Ukrainian lives but it would have been impossible for Ukraine to win the war because it would have been an allied victory and made Vladolf look like a hero back home.
Yes, but they don’t have to try that hard to sell that to the average ruskie. They enjoy swallowing anything.