Trump ‘doesn’t believe’ Ukraine targeted Putin residence with drone attack

President Donald Trump has announced that US officials have concluded Ukraine did not target a residence belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a drone attack last week.

This statement directly refutes earlier claims from the Kremlin, which President Trump had initially viewed with considerable concern.

Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that Ukraine had launched a wave of drones at Mr Putin’s state residence in the northwestern Novgorod region.

He claimed Russian defence systems successfully thwarted the assault.

Mr Lavrov also criticised Kyiv for orchestrating the attack during a period of intense negotiations aimed at ending the conflict.

open image in gallery

The allegation came just a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had traveled to Florida for talks with Trump on the U.S. administration's still-evolving 20-point plan aimed at ending the war. Zelensky quickly denied the Kremlin allegation.

Trump said that “something happened nearby” Putin's residence but that Americans officials didn't find the Russian president's residence was targeted.

“I don’t believe that strike happened," Trump told reporters as he traveled back to Washington on Sunday after spending two weeks at his home in Florida. “We don't believe that happened, now that we've been able to check.”

Trump addressed the U.S. determination after European officials argued that the Russian claim was nothing more than an effort by Moscow to undermine the peace effort.

But Trump, at least initially, had appeared to take the Russian allegations at face value. He told reporters last Monday that Putin had also raised the matter during a phone he had with the Russian leader earlier that day.

And Trump said he was “very angry” about the accusation.

By Wednesday, Trump appeared to be downplaying the Russian claim. He posted a link to a New York Post editorial on his social media platform that raised doubt about the Russian allegation.

open image in gallery

The editorial lambasted Putin for choosing "lies, hatred, and death” at a moment that Trump has claimed is “closer than ever before” to moving the two sides to a deal to end the war.

The U.S. president has struggled to fulfill a pledge to quickly end the war in Ukraine and has shown irritation with both Zelenskyy and Putin as he tried to mediate an end to a conflict he boasted on the campaign trail that he could end in one day.

Both Trump and Zelenskyy said last week they made progress in their talks at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.

But Putin has shown little interest in ending the war until all of Russia's objectives are met, including winning control of all Ukrainian territory in the key industrial Donbas region and imposing severe restrictions on the size of Ukraine's post-war military and the type of weaponry it can possess.