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Russia says Ukraine attacked Putin's home

2025-12-30 HKT 06:53
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  • Kyiv denies attacking Vladimir Putin's home in the Novgorod region with 91 drones. File photo: Reuters
    Kyiv denies attacking Vladimir Putin's home in the Novgorod region with 91 drones. File photo: Reuters
Russia accused Ukraine on Monday of trying to attack President Vladimir Putin's residence in northern Russia, although it provided no evidence to back up an assertion that Kyiv dismissed as baseless and designed to undermine peace negotiations.

The angry exchanges – including a statement by Russia that it was reviewing its stance in negotiations in response to the attack – dealt a new blow to prospects for peace in Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump said Putin had told him about the alleged attack in a phone call on Monday morning, which had angered him. Still, Trump repeated his belief that a peace deal may be near.

"It's one thing to be offensive," Trump told reporters. "It's another thing to attack his house. It's not the right time to do any of that. And I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it."

On Sunday, Trump met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Florida and the US president said they were "getting a lot closer, maybe very close" to an agreement to end the war, although "thorny" territorial issues remained.

On Monday, Putin struck a defiant tone, telling his army to press on with a campaign to take full control of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region. The Kremlin repeated demands for Kyiv to pull its forces out of the last part of the Donbas area that they still hold in eastern Ukraine.

Putin told Trump in Monday's phone call that Russia, which attacked Ukraine in February 2022, was reviewing its stance following the reported drone attack, an aide said.

After the call with Putin, Trump told reporters outside his home in Palm Beach, Florida, that he had no further information about the alleged attack.

"I don't like it, it's not good," Trump said. Asked if US intelligence agencies had evidence of such an attack, Trump said: "We'll find out."

Trump said the conversation with Putin was productive.

"We have a couple of issues that we're going to get resolved, hopefully, and if we get them resolved, you're going to have peace," Trump said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine had tried to attack Putin's residence in the Novgorod region west of Moscow on December 28-29 with 91 long-range drones which were all destroyed by Russian air defences. No one was injured and there was no damage, he said in comments reported by Russian media.

"Such reckless actions will not go unanswered," Lavrov said in a statement, describing the attack as "state terrorism" and adding that targets had already been selected for retaliatory strikes by Russia's armed forces.

Lavrov did not offer any evidence for his assertions in his statement. It was not clear where Putin was at the time.

Lavrov said the attack took place during negotiations about a possible peace deal, and said Russia would review its negotiating stance but not quit the negotiations.

Denying Ukraine had planned such an attack, Zelensky accused Russia of preparing the ground to strike government buildings in Kyiv, saying Russia wanted to undermine progress at US-Ukrainian talks on ending the war.

"Another round of lies from the Russian Federation," Zelensky told reporters via WhatsApp. "It is clear that we had a meeting with Trump yesterday, and it is clear that for the Russians, if there is no scandal between us and America, and we are making progress – for them it is a failure, because they do not want to end this war."

He added: "I am sure they are simply preparing the ground for strikes, probably on the capital, probably on government buildings." (Reuters)

Russia says Ukraine attacked Putin's home