- The Russian Ministry of Defense released a video of a downed drone in the Novgorod region.
- Kyiv denies claims of an attack on President Vladimir Putin’s residence.
- Russia claims that air defenses have neutralized all the drones.
- Representatives of Western countries question Russian accusations against Ukraine.
- Moscow is signaling a reassessment of its position in the peace negotiations.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Wednesday released a video of a downed drone it said was used by Ukraine in an attack on President Vladimir Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region. Kyiv denies the attack. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
Russia says Ukraine sent 91 long-range drones to Putin’s residence on Monday night. All of them were allegedly shot down by anti-aircraft defense, so there was no damage to the residence of the head of state near the town of Valdaj.
The video released by the Ministry of Defense was apparently shot at night and shows a virtually undamaged drone lying in the snow in a wooded area. According to the Russian state agency TASS, the plane was hit in the tail and its warhead filled with explosives remained unexploded.
The commander of the air defense components of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Major General Alexandr Romanenkov, stated at a press briefing that drones were launched from Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions. He also showed a map showing their flight path before they were shot down by air defense systems over the Bryansk, Tver, Smolensk and Novgorod regions.
“The structure of the attack, the number of deployed assets and their actions from the south, southwest and west directly towards the presidential residence in the Novgorod region clearly confirm that the terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime was targeted, carefully planned and multi-layered,” declared Romanenkov.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reported on the alleged Ukrainian attack on Putin’s residence on Monday. According to him, Moscow will react to it, while also reassessing its position in the peace negotiations, from which it does not want to withdraw. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi called Moscow’s accusation of the attack “another lie.” According to him, Russia is trying to undermine the progress achieved in the Ukrainian-American talks on the peace plan with such claims.
US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker also questioned Russia’s claims. According to him, it is not clear what really happened, and he would like to see reports from American and allied intelligence services on the matter. “It seems a little clumsy to do something like this when we’re so close to a peace agreement,” he noted in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.
Similarly, the head of EU diplomacy, Kaja On Wednesday, Kallas accused Russia of only making “baseless claims” that Ukraine had sent drones to Putin’s residence. According to her, Moscow is trying to “destroy real progress towards peace by Ukraine and its Western partners”, she wrote on the X network.
