Wednesday, December 31, 2025 - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected Russia’s claim that his country carried out an attack on a residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov claimed on
Monday that the attack had taken place on Putin’s residence in northwestern
Russia’s Novgorod region with 91 long-range strike drones.
Lavrov said that air defence systems shot down the drones
and that no one was injured.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said the strike
took place on Sunday, “practically immediately after” talks held in Florida
between United States President Donald Trump and Zelenskyy on negotiations to
end Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Zelenskyy quickly rejected Moscow’s claim and accused Russia
of attempting to derail the peace talks.
Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha also
condemned Moscow’s allegation, saying it was aimed at undermining the
negotiations.
In a post on X, Sybiha said the claim was intended “to
create a pretext and false justification for Russia’s further attacks against
Ukraine, as well as to undermine and impede the peace process”.
Russia said it would reassess its negotiating position in
light of the alleged attack, with Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson
Maria Zakharova warning that Moscow’s response “would not be diplomatic”.
Later on Monday, Trump said that Putin had told him during a
phone call that Ukraine had attempted to attack the Russian president’s
residence.
Speaking to reporters, Trump said Putin raised the
allegation during their call.
“I don’t like it. It’s not good,” Trump said when asked
whether the claim could affect his efforts to broker an end to the war in
Ukraine. “I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about
it.”
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When asked whether there was evidence to support the
allegation, Trump said, “We’ll find out.”
The United Arab Emirates’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
“strongly condemned” what it said was an “attempt to target” Putin’s residence.
The ministry affirmed the UAE’s solidarity with Russia in a
statement and denounced the “deplorable attack”.
The developments come as Russia’s full-scale invasion
of Ukraine approaches its fourth year.
Zelenskyy said last week that a 20-point peace plan was “90
percent agreed” upon and that US-Ukraine security guarantees were “100 percent
agreed” upon.
But major sticking points remain in relation to the future
of territory in the east of Ukraine that Russia has occupied.
Zelenskyy has reiterated that the issue should be decided by
the Ukrainian people, suggesting that different aspects of any deal could be
put to referendums.
Trump and Zelenskyy have both expressed optimism that a
peace deal could be close following the talks in Florida on Sunday.
Zelenskyy said on X that he had spoken by phone with German
Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics and Finnish
President Alexander Stubb, updating them on his meeting with Trump and the
state of negotiations.
He has sought to balance relations with European allies and
the US as he faces pressure from Trump to reach an agreement to end the war.
Netanyahu meets Trump in Florida amid talks on Gaza, Iran
and regional tensions
Meanwhile, fighting continued across multiple fronts in
Ukraine, with Russia’s army saying its forces captured the village of Dibrova
in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
In the southeastern Zaporizhia region, at least one civilian
was killed and another injured in a Russian attack on the city of Orikhiv,
according to regional Governor Ivan Fedorov. He said Russian guided aerial
bombs struck the front-line city, killing a 46-year-old man and injuring a
49-year-old woman.
In northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Governor Oleh
Syniehubov said Russian shelling had injured three people over the past 24
hours. A 73-year-old woman was injured in the village of Hroza, a 54-year-old
woman in Zolochiv, and a 73-year-old man in Novoplatonivka, he said.
Russia claimed its forces were advancing or improving
positions across multiple regions, including Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk,
Zaporizhia, Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk.
Ukraine’s General Staff said that 89 combat engagements had
been recorded along the front line since the start of the day. Fighting was
ongoing in six sectors, with Russian forces concentrating their main efforts on
the Pokrovsk sector, according to an operational update published by Ukrinform
on Monday.
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