MOSCOW: Russia’s defence ministry published a video on Wednesday of a downed drone that it said Ukraine launched at President Vladimir Putin’s residence in northwest Russia this week — a claim Kyiv has branded a “lie”. Moscow made the allegation shortly after Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky held talks with US President Donald Trump in Florida and Kyiv has called it a “fabrication” intended to “manipulate” the peace process.
The European Union also said the video was an attempt to “derail” peace efforts. But Russia has called it a “terrorist attack” and a “personal attack” against Putin, saying it will toughen its negotiation stance in Ukraine war talks. The video, shot at night in the dark, showed a damaged drone lying in snow in a forested area. The ministry said the alleged attack was “targeted, carefully planned and carried out in stages”.
Russia has not said where Putin was at the time, claiming the attack was launched on the night of December 28-29 at Putin’s home in the Novgorod region. His residences are normally kept a close secret. The defence ministry said the attack started around 7:00 pm on December 28 and was a “mass” drone launch at Putin’s residence, but said the longtime leader’s home was not damaged. It also published a video with a man it called a witness, saying he was a local villager from the settlement of Roshchino.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which documents the Ukraine-Russia conflict, said on Tuesday it had not seen any “footage or reporting that typically follows Ukrainian deep strikes to corroborate the Kremlin’s claims of Ukrainian strikes threatening Putin’s residence in Novgorod Oblast”. Russian officials have rallied around Putin since the claim. The Russian leader, in power since December 1999, has told Russians in recent weeks that Moscow intends to seize the rest of Ukrainian land he has proclaimed as Russian by force if diplomacy fails. “Kremlin officials are using the alleged Ukrainian strike against Novgorod Oblast to justify Russia’s continued insistence that both Ukraine and the West capitulate to Russia’s original demands from 2021 and 2022,” the ISW said this week.
Meanwhile, Russian strikes wounded six people in Odesa including three children, the Ukrainian city’s military administration said on Wednesday. “Drones attacked the residential, logistical, and energy infrastructure of our region,” Odesa’s military administration regional head Oleg Kiper said on Telegram. Two children aged eight and 14 were wounded in the attack, as well as a seven-month-old baby, Sergiy Lysak, head of the city’s military administration, said in a separate Telegram post.
Elsewhere Russian drones wounded two men in the Dnipropetrovsk region, its military administration head Vladyslav Gaivanenko said on Telegram.
In Russia meanwhile, two people were wounded in a drone attack on Tuapse in the Krasnodar Krai region, municipal leader Sergei Boiko said in a Telegram post. The attack damaged a port berth and equipment at an oil refinery as well as homes. Munitions strikes left three people wounded in the Belgorod region, its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country believed it would win in Ukraine, where Moscow has led an almost four-year offensive, in his New Year’s Eve address on Wednesday. Putin’s traditional speech was first aired in the far-eastern Kamchatka peninsula — the first Russian region to enter 2026. He called on Russians to “support our heroes” fighting in Ukraine, saying: “We believe in you and our victory.” He wished a happy New Year to “fighters and commanders” in Ukraine and said: “Millions of people across Russia, trust me, are thinking of you.”
The conflict in Ukraine has had a huge human cost — with military deaths on both sides believed to be in the tens, or even hundreds, of thousands. December 31 marks the 26th anniversary of Putin coming to power. He became president of Russia on New Year’s Eve 1999, when Boris Yeltsin stepped down. The televised New Year’s Eve speech, which continues a tradition started by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, is a holiday staple in Russia and watched in millions of households. It is aired on state TV just before midnight in each of Russia’s 11 time zones. — AFP
