Russia’s False Flag vs. The Real Drone Threat

Sometimes the Russian propaganda comes in so hot and heavy I wonder whether or not the Kremlin mouthpieces spewing it actually believe what they’re saying. 

The accusations get so outlandish it’s comical. 

Literally. 

Back in March, an audience of academics, executives and diplomats from the G-20 broke into laughter at a conference in Delhi when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov blithely painted Ukraine as the aggressor in a war Russia was allegedly trying to stop. 

"The war which we are trying to stop and which was launched against us," Lavrov said before being interrupted by an eruption of cackles and groans.

Of course, the conference should have known better. That’s what you get when you invite a Russian official to speak — a torrent of lies and propaganda. 

By their account, the United States is the architect of a massive conspiracy to assassinate Vladimir Putin and destroy Russia once and for all. 

Apparently, they’re in so much denial about losing the Cold War that they’re intent on resurrecting it... 

By any means necessary.

And apparently this week that means accusing the United States and Ukraine of attacking the Kremlin with two small drones in what Russian officials called “a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the president’s life.” 

Is this another joke?

Look, I don’t know what happened at the Kremlin in the wee hours of the night on May 3. 

It could be a false flag that Putin aims to use for further escalation or to try to rally the Russian people behind a flailing war effort that never had any domestic buy-in in the first place.

Or it could have been an amateur group of Russian dissidents trying to end this quagmire of a war that’s already cost hundreds of thousands of lives so far.

I don’t know. 

All I can tell you for sure is that it wasn’t us. 

How do I know?

Because I’ve seen the United States assassinate people with drones before. 

And that’s not how we do it.

You might remember back in January 2020 (right before the whole world got turned upside down) the U.S. government, acting on the orders of President Trump, assassinated Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. 

And we didn’t do it with a couple of tiny toy drones. We sent an MQ-9 Reaper to drop a bomb on top of his motorcade as he left the Baghdad airport. 

There was so much carnage they had to use DNA to identify the casualties (there were 10 in total). Soleimani's body was identified by a ring that he was known to wear.

Make no mistake, the United States is extremely comfortable with targeted drone strikes. We carry them out all the time. 

Just last August, the Biden administration conducted a “precision” drone strike on al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri with not one but two Hellfire missiles in downtown Kabul.

So, if we wanted to assassinate Vladimir Putin with a drone that’s how we’d do it. 

Of course, that’s not to say the Russians shouldn’t fear drones. 

They absolutely should. 

Because drones have been instrumental in Ukraine’s defense. They do everything from reconnaissance to targeting to deploying munitions. 

As Ivan Ukraintsev, whose Starlife charity purchases and donates drones to the war effort, recently told Al Jazeera...

“If we [Ukraine] had enough drones, we could end this war in two months.”  

And Cole Rosentreter, CEO of Canadian drone maker Pegasus, recently made a really good point in The New York Times...

"We’ve returned to warfare at industrial scale; both sides are treating drones the same as artillery shells now, because whoever has the logistical base to outproduce the other has a clear advantage on the battlefield."

That’s why the latest U.S. aid package, which went out in February, included $2 billion worth of drones and ammunition. 

That’s the future of combat — one in which drones are duking it out on the battlefield as opposed to assassinating a head of state. 

In fact, I recently released a brand-new report detailing a company that makes advanced, ruggedized edge computers — technology that could be used in drones as well as more innocuous robot workers. 

The stock right now is trading for less than $4.00 per share and it’s a massive steal at that price. 

So make sure to check out my full report on drone technology, robot workers, and the company at the center of it all right here. 

It’s definitely worth your time. And it’s a heck of a lot more informative than Russian propaganda.

Fight on,

Jason Simpkins

@OCSimpkins on Twitter

Jason Simpkins is Assistant Managing Editor of the Outsider Club and Investment Director of Wall Street's Proving Ground, a financial advisory focused on security companies and defense contractors. For more on Jason, check out his editor's page. 

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