Did Russia Prime Nuclear Jets after Kremlin Drone Strike? What We Know

A drone strike on President Vladimir Putin's residence in the Kremlin in the early hours of May 3, 2023, has sent shockwaves around Moscow's political establishment and fueled concerns about a possible retaliatory strike in Ukraine and among its Western allies.

While no conclusive explanation of who was behind the attack has yet emerged, Russia quickly put the blame squarely on Ukraine (and indirectly, on the U.S.). In Kyiv, officials were swift to deny any role, instead speculating that Russian-based saboteurs or even a group of Russian oligarchs were behind it. Neither side has offered any substantive evidence to support its claims.

The incident is seen as a major escalation and potentially a turning point in the Russia-Ukraine war, which began with Russia's invasion in February 2022, stoking fears that Moscow could respond by intensifying attacks on Kyiv (including Ukrainian government headquarters) or even deploy tactical nuclear missiles.

The White House was quick to fire back at Russia's accusations, calling them "ludicrous."

"The United States had nothing to do with this. We don't even know exactly what happened here ... But I can assure you, the United States had no role in it whatsoever," National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told CNN on Thursday.

Meanwhile, some observers, including the Institute for the Study of War, suggested the attack was in fact a "staged" false flag operation by the Kremlin, designed to serve as a pretext for announcing full mobilization or closing the country's borders. Others have argued that Moscow stands to gain little from such a strategy, which is hugely embarrassing for Putin.

Shortly after the reports of the drone explosion over the Senate dome emerged, Russian officials and state TV personalities began calling for blood, with TV firebrand Vladimir Solovyov issuing an ominous warning and the former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev demanding that Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky be "annihilated."

Former Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin, who was reportedly wounded on the Ukraine front in December 2022, went even further, calling for a retaliatory "nuclear strike" on Ukraine. Others, like Wagner PMC boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, appeared wary of perpetuating the nuclear "saber-rattling", saying it made Russia look like "clowns."

Still, the incendiary rhetoric fueled speculation and unverified claims on social media and Russian and English-language accounts and channels, with one claim suggesting that Russian strategic bombers were being prepared for launch, with "at least two nuclear warheads" being spotted at the Engels air base, which itself came under attack in late 2022.

Newsweek Misinformation Watch looked into some of these claims to assess if there is any factual basis to them.

"Breaking: Several Russian strategic bombers Tu-22M taking off," the verified "Terror Alarm" Twitter account tweeted late on Wednesday.

"Several Russian strategic bombers Tu-22M taking off. And air raid sirens sounding in Kyiv," another post said.

"2 Tu-22m3 strategic bombers airborne," the War Monitor account said. Dozens of similar posts over the ensuing hours gathered more than a million views on the platform.

These posts added to the confusion and speculation about Russia's possible response to the attack, with a post by the verified DEFCONWarningSystem account fanning the flames with suggestions that the U.S. had entered a heightened state of alert.

"We are currently evaluating rumours of nuclear movement in Russia. Please remember that these are rumours only with no verification at the moment," the account wrote shortly after the rumors began to swirl.

While none of the posts referenced specific sources, one of the most prominent claims appeared to have been amplified on Twitter by Winds of Change founder and pro-Ukraine activist Igor Sushko.

"Russia may launch missile strikes on Kyiv this night. Two nuclear warheads allegedly at the airfield but not armed on the planes at this time," Sushko tweeted, in a thread that appeared to reference another source, the exiled former Russian entrepreneur turned human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin.

Osechkin has previously reported on the internal workings of the Russian military and security apparatus in a series termed "leaked FSB letters."

Sushko's tweets were a translation of a Telegram post by Gulagu.net, a news outlet founded by Osechkin, which, in turn, cited a "source" at one of Russia's air force bases.

"Orders have been sent to the air bases in Engels and Shaykovka to prepare a number of TU-22Ms for flight, missile strikes could be carried out on a number of administrative buildings in Kiev during the night," Osechkin's source supposedly reported.

"The source also claimed that for the first time nuclear weapons may be used, at least two 'items' are already located directly at one of the aforementioned airfields," the post said.

The post cited further comments made by Osechkin in a livestream, speculating that an attack on Kyiv was imminent: "Mass strikes planned for 5am-5:30am at Kyiv and Kharkiv," and that "FSB Counterintelligence is onsite at the air bases (Engels, etc.) and there is total chaos because of the real-time leaks."

Newsweek has reached out to Vladimir Osechkin for comment via a messenger app.

Sushko, in response to Newsweek's request for comment, said that he was simply translating the publicly-available information revealed in Osechkin's livestream.

He said that the only personal opinion expressed in his tweets indicated he did not believe an attack was likely. He also pointed Newsweek to other comments in the thread, which dismiss the likelihood of a nuclear strike, including one stating that "documents have not been completed for the 'red button' mechanism."

Still, the rumors about the supposed preparation of Russia's nuclear warheads continued to circulate on Twitter and Telegram through Thursday. After weighing up the evidence behind the viral claims, however, Newsweek found that there are reasons to doubt their veracity, particularly in the context of the potentially catastrophic implications of such developments.

Osechkin's claim, genuine or not, is supposedly based on an anonymous source, which he does not provide a lot of information on. Furthermore, a pro-Kremlin far right influencer Vladislav Pozdnyakov (sometimes dubbed the "Russian Andrew Tate") appeared to pour cold water on it, claiming that it was him posing as a "leaker."

"I wrote this sucker an email posing as the pilot and he read it out in his broadcast with a completely straight face like it was a leak," Pozdnyakov wrote on Telegram, adding a screengrab of the supposed email communication.

While Newsweek could not independently verify Pozdnyakov's claim (he has been known to spread misinformation and propaganda before), and whether the screenshot was genuine, others, including independent Russian journalist Ilya Shepelin, also expressed skepticism about Osechkin's sourcing.

"Osechkin from the Gulag-Net spent half the night broadcasting with a most serious expression [what appears to be] trolling messages and memes that nuclear bombers were about to take off and start the apocalypse. Messages were sent to him by the leader of the so-called "male state," introducing himself as "Colonel Pozdnyakov," Shepelin wrote.

But as these unverified claims began to spread on social media, neither Russian nor Western officials have so far gone on record corroborating them.

The Pentagon made no comment on the speculative claims about Russian strategic bombers, though the U.S. embassy in Ukraine did issue a statement warning of the possibility of another missile strike on the capital.

"In light of the recent uptick in strikes across Ukraine and inflammatory rhetoric from Moscow, the Department of State cautions U.S. citizens of an ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast," the statement said, in part.

Meanwhile, the seemingly "official" channels pushing the narrative have previously been exposed as unaffiliated to any genuine government or security bodies.

For example, the DEFCONWarningSystem account describes itself as a private intelligence organization that has been analyzing the threat of nuclear war since 1984 and offers an alert code to the public.

But it offers no evidence of having any affiliation with or operational knowledge of the U.S. armed forces, and has been accused of making sensationalist and misleading claims by reporters, including Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton.

"We are unable to verify any claims of either Russian nuclear movements nor a heightened state of nuclear alert in Russia. We will continue to monitor the situation," the account posted an hour after the original alert claim.

Similarly, the blue-ticked Terror Alert account does not actually have any connection to government or military organizations, as it states clearly in the bio: "Non-State-Affiliated Agenda-Free News Media with a focus on combating terrorism through #AI."

Perhaps most tellingly, the sensationalist rumors and unverified claims over a supposed retaliatory strike against Ukraine have largely failed to materialize, as of Thursday afternoon, even as Russia carried out yet another mass drone attack on Kyiv and other regions.

The drone and missile barrages have largely become routine in the capital and other parts of Ukraine in recent weeks following Russia's strategic shift.

On Thursday morning, Ukraine's air force command reported shooting down 18 of the 24 Shahed-type loitering munitions launched by Russia overnight.

The capital's military administration later issued a statement with details of the attack, stating that Kyiv came under assault from "Shahed-type loitering munitions and, probably, the ballistic-type missiles (the type of missiles used will be determined only after the examination of the remains)," and adding that "all enemy missiles and UAVs in Kyiv airspace" were destroyed.

With Osechkin's predictions apparently failing to materialize, neither Sushko nor Osechkin initially posted anything on the morning of May 4.

The Gulagu Telegram channel published a comment at around noon GMT, in which Osechkin dismissed the accusations that he fell for disinformation as a "psyop," and implied that ultimately no strategic or tactical nuclear weapons had been used after the leaks he published. He did not offer additional evidence to support this claim.

Later on Thursday, Osechkin shared what he claimed were photos of a "command center" in Shaikovka, one of the locations cited in his commentary. He claimed the pictures were taken by his source, and went on to explicitly refute Pozdnyakov's claim that he was one of Osechkin's "insiders." Newsweek could not independently corroborate the veracity of the photos.

On Friday morning, Russia's defense ministry announced that it held military drills in the Kaliningrade enclave, part of which involved testing the combat readiness of Iskanders, the mobile short-range ballistic missile systems. It made no mention of any strategic bombers being used in the exercises, which took place in a different location from those mentioned by Osechkin.

It may ultimately be impossible to definitively confirm or dismiss the allegations that Russian strategic bombers were given orders to go combat ready, and even loaded with nuclear warheads, in the hours after drone attack on the Kremlin.

The provenance of the latest claims, which can be traced to a single source of questionable veracity, however, calls for a hefty dose of skepticism. Newsweek has found no substantive or corroborating evidence to support these claims.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry and the Pentagon for comment.

UPDATE: 5/5/23 5:17 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with comments from Igor Sushko and clarification of his role in the distribution of the unverified claims.