The White House on Thursday denied claims from Russia that the US was behind a drone attack on the Kremlin.
Moscow said, without evidence, that the drone attack was an attempt by Ukraine to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also made the unsubstantiated claim that the US was the mastermind behind the attack.
“Decisions on such attacks are not made in Kyiv, but in Washington,” Mr Peskov said.
“Kyiv only does what it is told to do … Washington should understand clearly that we know this.”
White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said Mr Peskov was “just lying there, pure and simple”.
“We had nothing to do with this,” Mr Kirby told MSNBC on Thursday.
And speaking to CNN, Mr Kirby called Russia's claims “ludicrous”.
“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,” he said.
Unverified images show the Kremlin Senate being struck by an explosion from a possible drone, although the roof appeared to be unscathed and people were climbing the stairs outside the building's dome. Mr Peskov said “two copper sheets” of the domed roof were damaged.
The authenticity of the footage showing the drone strike on the Kremlin was not confirmed and Moscow has not yet released official images of the event. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington could not verify Moscow's claims that a drone had tried to strike the Kremlin building.
“I would take anything coming out of the Kremlin with a very large shaker of salt. We’ll see what the facts are,” Mr Blinken said.
Kyiv accused Moscow of staging the attack before a possible Ukrainian spring offensive.
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell warned Moscow not to use the alleged drone attack to escalate the war.
“This is what worries us: this can be used to justify more conscription of people, more soldiers, more attacks on Ukraine,” Mr Borrell said.
The incident came days before Russia's Victory Day parade on May 9, which celebrates the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
Mr Peskov said the parade would go ahead as planned and include a speech by the Russian President.
Agencies contributed to this report
