A day after Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with US President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida and hailed the progress they had made on the peace deal, Russia claimed that Kyiv had carried out a drone attack on President Vladimir Putin’s house.
In fact, Moscow has promised to retaliate, with Russia’s foreign minister saying the country’s negotiating position would change following the alleged strikes, which will throw a wrench into President Trump’s efforts to end the nearly four-year war.
Ukraine launched 91 drones, claims Russia
On Monday, Russia claimed that Ukraine had launched an attack, using 91 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles on Putin’s state residence in Russia’s Novgorod region.
The country’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told Interfax news agency that “all the UAVs were destroyed by air defence systems,” adding: “No information has been received about casualties or damage caused by UAV debris.” It wasn’t clear if Putin was in Novgorod at the time of the alleged strikes.
Satellite imagery shows Vladimir Putin's residential complex in Roshchino, Novgorod Region, Russia. File image/Planet Labs/Reuters
For the unaware, Putin owns a heavily fortified house on the shores of Lake Valdai in Novgorod Oblast in northwestern Russia. The existence of this luxury property was revealed in 2021 by allies of Alexei Navalny, the famous opposition leader, who died in 2024. They alleged that state funds had been used to lease the property from one of Putin’s closest allies, as well as carry out extensive renovations.
Reports have stated that the Russian president has increasingly favoured Valdai since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. One of the reasons being that it is located on a peninsula between two lakes, making it difficult to target with drones and missiles, and is thought to be heavily guarded. Satellite imagery from 2024 also revealed that 12 heavy-duty Pantsir-S1 air defence systems installed around Lake Valdai as Kyiv stepped up its attacks on Russian soil.
Following the alleged strikes, Russia vowed it would retaliate with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov adding: “Such reckless actions will not go unanswered. The targets for retaliatory strikes and the timing of their implementation by the Russian armed forces have been determined.”
Lavrov also said, “Given the final degeneration of the criminal Kyiv regime, which has switched to a policy of state terrorism, Russia’s negotiating position will be revised.” But he added that Russia did not intend to exit the negotiating process with the US.
Ukraine denies drone strikes
However, Ukraine has rejected the claims of a drone strike at Putin’s residence, calling it “another lie from the Russian Federation”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that Russia “is at it again, using dangerous statements to undermine all achievements of our shared diplomatic efforts with President Trump’s team”.
“We keep working together to bring peace closer,” Zelenskyy continued.
“This alleged ‘residence strike’ story is a complete fabrication intended to justify additional attacks against Ukraine, including Kyiv, as well as Russia’s own refusal to take necessary steps to end the war. Typical Russian lies. Furthermore, the Russians have already targeted Kyiv in the past, including the Cabinet of Ministers building.
“Ukraine does not take steps that can undermine diplomacy. To the contrary, Russia always takes such steps. This is one of many differences between us. It is critical that the world doesn’t stay silent now. We cannot allow Russia to undermine the work on achieving a lasting peace.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha echoed Zelenskyy’s comments and urged the world to “condemn the provocative Russian statements aimed at derailing the constructive peace process.”
In a post on X, Sybiha said Ukraine strikes only legitimate military targets in the Russian territory. The “fabricated” Russian claims regarding an alleged attack on Putin’s residence were only made as a “pretext and false justification for Russia’s further attacks against Ukraine,” he wrote.
Trump speaks up
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said he was “very angry” to hear reports of an alleged Ukrainian drone strike on one of Vladimir Putin’s state residences in Russia. Speaking while welcoming Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to Florida, the American leader said it was “not good”.
VIDEO | "I don't like it, it's not good, and I am very angry about it," says US President Donald Trump on the alleged attempted strike on Putin's residence.
(Source: Third Party)
(Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/n147TvrpG7) pic.twitter.com/Qv2d1ZY0xj
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) December 29, 2025
“I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it,” said Trump, describing his second phone call with the Russian leader in as many days as “very good”.
“It’s a delicate period of time,” he added. “This is not the right time. It’s one thing to be offensive, because they’re offensive. It’s another thing to attack his house. It’s not the right time to do any of that.”
Asked if there’s evidence of the attack, Trump replied: “Well, we’ll find out. You’re saying maybe the attack didn’t take place? That’s possible, I guess, but President Putin told me this morning.”
Future of peace talks uncertain
Many Russia-Ukraine watchers believe that the drone strikes, which come a day after Zelenskyy met Trump, could derail the ongoing peace talks and that Kyiv would gain nothing from the attacks.
On Sunday, Trump expressed optimism on the peace deal, telling reporters that a deal was “very close” and “90 per cent” of the way there. He added that “one or two very thorny issues” remain, which would decide whether an agreement could be found between Kyiv and Moscow.
A reporter raises a hand to ask a question during a press conference held by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US. President Donald Trump after their lunch meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, in Palm Beach, Florida on Sunday. File image/Reuters
The Wall Street Journal wrote that “blowing up the Trump-Zelenskyy bonhomie may have been Putin’s intention. It also said that there was enough reason to doubt the Russian claim. When Ukraine conducts a deep strike against Russia, there are normally “reports from local civilians and government about drones or drone debris, footage of drones flying overhead or air defences activating, and footage — often geolocated — of fires, smoke plumes, or explosions,” Grace Mappes of the Institute for the Study of War, was quoted as telling
Other geopolitical experts also questioned Russia’s claims on the strikes, saying it wouldn’t benefit Kyiv in any way. Peter Dickinson, the editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert and the publisher of Business Ukraine and Lviv Today magazines, told ABC News, “There was no suggestion that there was any major damage, but the idea was that Ukraine had essentially tried to kill Putin.
“But broadly speaking it doesn’t make any sense [because] he is known to concentrate air defences around his residences. You’re not going to get many drones through.
“And even if you did, these are big, sprawling estates, so the chances of hitting one person there, and knowing where he is, are almost zero.”
Defence analyst Malcolm Davis from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute also told the news outlet that “it would be strategically and politically stupid to do so because in doing so they would scupper any good will they’ve built up with the Trump administration”.
“Attacking his home would play into Putin’s hands. Putin would then be able to use that attack to justify escalation towards Ukraine in terms of attacking government buildings. And indeed that's exactly Putin is now suggesting will happen,” he added.
We shall have to wait and watch to see what comes next — will peace prevail or will 2026 be another year of war?
With inputs from agencies
