MOSCOW, Russia (PNN) - May 25, 2025 - The Kremlin as well as Russian media are alleging a huge, potentially conflict-altering incident that will surely escalate the war in Ukraine - an attempted attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.
A high-ranking Russian military commander on Sunday described that last week, as President Putin traveled to the Kursk region for the first time since its liberation after 6+ months of Ukrainian occupation, Ukraine tried to attack Putin’s helicopter mid-flight, sending a wave of drones to swarm the flight path of the chopper.
The presidential helicopter was caught in the “epicenter” of a massive Ukrainian drone attack, commander of an air defense division in Kursk, Yury Dashkin, told Russian media. The headline is the top featured story of English-language RT on Sunday, something which suggests the allegations are largely aimed at grabbing the attention of the West.
The incident is said to have happened Tuesday as the helicopter transported Putin to tour Kursk - a southern oblast which has suffered much destruction since the initial Ukrainian cross-border incursion of last August.
Commander Yury Dashkin told Russia 1 in an interview which aired Sunday said that Putin’s helicopter had found itself “in the epicenter of an operation to repel a massive drone attack by the enemy” in Kursk Region.
He went on to describe that this “unprecedented” attack was successfully repelled by anti-air defenses in the region. Air defense units in the area had to “simultaneously conduct anti-aircraft combat and ensure the safety of the president’s helicopter in the air. The task was accomplished,” Dashkin stated. “The attack of the enemy drones was repelled, with all aerial targets being hit.”