Treat everything said about the Russian drone attack with scepticism
It is not the first time drones have attacked Moscow. And it may not be the most significant.
The drone attack on the Kremlin was more significant in terms of the target.
Two drones were used then and so far Sky News cannot say for sure that more than two drones were used in today’s attack – even if different Russian sources claim numbers ranging from eight to 25 to 32.
And it is far from clear who was responsible. Was it Russia attacking its own capital? Sounds mad, but perfectly plausible. Was it a disaffected Russian faction? Also possible. Or Ukrainians? Surely the most likely culprits? Not necessarily.
Drone experts will be spending the day trying to identify the UAVs used, poring over fuselage silhouettes. That will help attribute blame but not definitively.
If Western drone spotters can identify Ukrainian designs, Russians can copy them, if they really want to go to such lengths to create a false flag incident.
More useful might be working out who has to gain most.
For Russia faking a Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow helps alienate Western support for Kyiv.
Ukraine is meant to have given cast-iron assurances it would not launch attacks on Russia itself.
It also helps scare its own population, galvanising support against the enemy.
If that sounds far fetched, remember that a series of Moscow apartment bombings in 1990 that killed more than 300 and were used as the pretext for the Chechen war that secured the rise of Vladimir Putin, are now thought to have been the work of Russia’s FSB spy agency.
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Drone ‘attack’ damages Moscow buildings
It also gives the Russians justification for their relentless barbaric attacks on Kyiv as they can now claim Ukrainians are at it too.
A rogue Russian faction perhaps? Also possible. The drones have come down in an area where some of the country’s elites live and makes the Putin regime look weak.
Yevgheny Prigozhin, who heads the Wagner mercenary group, has already spoken out to condemn the government for leaving the capital exposed.
Ukraine has less to gain from this episode.
Read more: Ukraine war live updates
It plays into the hands of enemies in the West, especially those in America who want to turn off the spigot of US military help.
The Ukrainians can’t keep their word, they will say, or can’t control themselves.
It weakens Kyiv’s moral position too. For a year-and-a-half it has been condemning Russia for its wilful arbitrary assault on civilian buildings.
Now it appears to be doing the same thing.
Sure Ukrainians have been attacking civilian infrastructure deep into Russia for months now, from oil refineries to depots.
But residential buildings in the capital is of a different order and out of character. If Ukraine is doing this, it is only explained as part of the prelude to the long-awaited counteroffensive.
Part of a pattern, to unnerve the enemy, along with those strange cross-border raids in Belgorod and Bryansk.
Keep the enemy on its toes, probe its weaknesses, show that no one is safe with the big push only days away.
But that only holds water if that offensive really is just around the corner.
We have been saying so for days – weeks now – and no sign yet of Ukraine’s much-vaunted counterattack.
Until that happens and a convincing narrative emerges, treat everything that happens in this war and everything that is said about it with scepticism.
No one knows anything for sure.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Read more from Sky News:
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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