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05-01-2026
MOSCOW: Russia finished 2025 with what Ukraine described as an information operation designed to avoid engaging in peace talks and continue its war, despite suffering staggering casualties for meagre territorial gains this year.
On 29 December, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Ukraine of attempting to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin at his residence at Lake Valdai, 140km (87 miles) northeast of Moscow.
“The Kyiv regime launched a terrorist attack using 91 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on the state residence of the president of the Russian Federation in the Novgorod Region. All the UAVs were destroyed by the air defence systems of the Russian Armed Forces,” said Lavrov in a statement.
He did not say whether Putin was in residence at the time.
Lavrov’s Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, quickly dismissed the claim. “Almost a day passed and Russia still hasn’t provided any plausible evidence to its accusations of Ukraine’s alleged ‘attack on Putin’s residence’. And they won’t. Because there’s none. No such attack happened,” Sybiha said.
Russia produced photographs of drone debris lying in the snow two days later, but the drone’s location, manufacture and the time of its downing could not be corroborated from them.
“The attack on Putin’s Valdai residence is presumably a Kremlin fake,” wrote the opposition outlet Sota. “Residents of Valdai, where Putin’s ‘Dinner’ residence is located, told Sota that last night they did not hear the work of the air defence, which would have shot down 91 drones.”
Sota also pointed out that drones attacking Valdai “necessarily cross a specially protected airspace with objects of the Strategic Missile Forces, East Kazakhstan region, military aviation, closed administrative units such as Solnechny, Lake, etc.
“A drone crossing the territory of these facilities can fly to the Dinner residence only by miracle,” Sota said.
Lavrov’s claim also appeared at odds with an earlier announcement from the Russian Ministry of Defence that only 41 drones had been downed in the Novgorod region on the night of December 28-29.
Russia’s Defence Ministry later issued an update, saying another 49 drones had been shot down over Bryansk and one over Smolensk “flying in the direction of Novgorod region”.
Ukraine observers pointed out that Bryansk and Smolensk are hundreds of kilometres from Valdai.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, stated that none of the usual evidence of Ukrainian strikes accompanied the alleged attack, such as footage, heat signatures, statements from local officials, or local media reports.
For example, a successful Ukrainian attack against an oil depot in Rybinsk on December 31 was well-documented on social media. So was an attack on the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Rostov a week earlier, as well as a number of other strikes during the week.
What really happened?
News of the alleged attack came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy concluded successful talks with United States President Donald Trump in Florida, garnering a promise that US forces would participate in Ukraine’s security following any peace agreement with Russia.
It was the first time the US had agreed to such security guarantees, and it appeared to make Polish Premier Donald Tusk optimistic that the war in Ukraine could end early in 2026. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
