A claim by the Russian Defence Ministry that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin was “in the epicentre of a drone attack” has turned out to be a staged performance by the Kremlin.
Four sources within the government and the Kremlin told The Moscow Times that security officials promoted this shocking and "risky" episode in the media to convince Russians that their leader is not hiding behind others, but is also supposedly taking risks and making sacrifices.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a PR spin.
I imagine the conversation going something like this:
"Holy shit, the Ukrainians almost hit the presidential helicopter. This makes us look real bad.
Okay, here's what we do. We tell everybody that it was us, and it was totally on purpose so they don't realize how close the Ukrainians came to winning the war"
Lol, that would awesome except I'm not sure how he could fight from his chair wile Putin is in a helicopter. I guess he could be fighting the air traffic controllers or the ground crew from a chair? This script will probably have to go through a few revisions.