Cui Bono? Even if the drones hit their tagret there was no way they were gonna kill Putin in one of the most fortified buildings outside the Kremlin.
As stupid and irrational as some of the ukrainian commanders are, is there really anyone who would think doing this attack while trump was meeting zelensky was going to help their cause? They all know that Trump is annoyed with ukraine more than he is annoyed with Russia. Someone with the stripes to organize a strike with 91 long range drones must have just a little bit more foresight than to think this would be a good idea. (There could be a deep cover Russian asset inside Ukraine who could organize this but that is a tiny bit too “007” for real life)
Russia isn’t against playing dirty they are just way better at hiding it.
That the attack happened while zelensky was having a meeting with trump is a perfect way to spoil the “last person he talked to” effect on trump in fact it would likely cause an inversion of trump’s mood toward zelensky. (a very “judo” style move of redirecting the opponent’s momentum and using it against them.)
Putin was the guy to tell trump and I’m pretty sure trump trusts Putin more than he trusts most of the people in his own administration.
I can imagine Putin on the phone to trump, hamming it up, acting angry and irrational and saying he is going to kill zelensky. Putin would let trump talk him down which would work his ego. (imagine trump telling the story of how he saved zelensky’s life and stopped a nuclear war in a single phone call)
Meanwhile Putin would extract concessions from trump “Ok I wont nuke keiv or shoot down zelensky’s plane, but I have to do some big strikes or my people will think I’m going soft, you understand. Tell you what I just launch a couple Oresniks at some military targets. It’ll be a big show but it won’t be radioactive and it wont kill millions of civilians.”
Its a way to get trump’s understanding that Russia is going to do a K.O. strike and that it’s the only way to get ukraine to accept the reality that the war is lost. Russia gets to do an attack that could spark a nuclear war under other circumstances.
So, what the CIA is claiming is that Ukraine did attack but they weren’t trying to attack Putin, just other targets very close to Putin, as if Russia is supposed to take that any less seriously in any case.