Russia's Defense Ministry released video Wednesday of a downed drone it said Ukraine launched at President Vladimir Putin's residence in northwest Russia this week, a claim kyiv has called a “lie.”
Moscow made the accusation shortly after Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky held talks with US President Donald Trump in Florida and kyiv called it a “fabrication” aimed at “manipulating” the peace process.
The European Union also said the video was an attempt to “derail” peace efforts.
But Russia has called it a “terrorist attack” and “personal attack” against Putin, saying it will toughen its negotiating stance in war talks in Ukraine.
The video, recorded at night in the dark, showed a disabled drone lying in the snow in a wooded area. The ministry said the alleged attack was “targeted, carefully planned and carried out in stages.”
Russia has not said where Putin was at the time, claiming that the attack was launched on the night of December 28-29 at Putin's home in the Novgorod region. Their residences are usually kept secret.
The Defense Ministry said the attack began around 7pm on December 28 and was a “massive” drone launch at Putin's residence, but said the longtime leader's home was not damaged.
He also posted a video with a man he called a witness, saying he was a local villager from the Roshchino settlement.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which documents the Ukraine-Russia conflict, said on Tuesday that it had not seen any “footage or reporting that typically follows Ukrainian deep strikes to corroborate the Kremlin's claims that Ukrainian strikes threaten Putin's residence in the Novgorod Oblast.”
Russian officials have supported Putin since the claim. The Russian leader, in power since December 1999, has told Russians in recent weeks that Moscow intends to forcibly seize the rest of the Ukrainian territory it has proclaimed Russian if diplomacy fails.
“Kremlin officials are using the alleged Ukrainian attack on Novgorod Oblast to justify Russia's continued insistence that both Ukraine and the West capitulate to Russia's original 2021 and 2022 demands,” the ISW said this week.
