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Moscow, Jan 3: 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 Monday, December 29, 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.”

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.

“Peace is on the horizon,” he told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

“The key result of recent days is the American declaration… (of) willingness to participate in security guarantees for Ukraine after a peace agreement, including the presence of American troops, for example, on the border or on the line of contact between Ukraine and Russia,” Tusk said.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s allies, known as the Coalition of the Willing, were scheduled to meet in Kyiv on January 3 and in France three days later.

Yet Trump appeared to believe Moscow’s allegations.

“I don’t like it. It’s not good,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “It’s one thing to be offensive… It’s another thing to attack his house. It’s not the right time to do any of that. And I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it.”

Other US officials were not convinced. US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker expressed scepticism, telling an interviewer on Monday, “It’s unclear whether it actually happened.” On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that US intelligence had determined that Ukraine did not target Putin’s residence.

Moscow’s messaging appeared to bookend Zelenskyy’s meeting with Trump, targeting the US president.

Putin held staged meetings with his General Staff on Saturday, December 27, and Monday, just before and after Zelenskyy’s meeting with Trump, during which commander-in-chief Valery Gerasimov broadcast exaggerated claims of success.

He said Russian forces had occupied 6,640 square kilometres (2,564 square miles) of Ukrainian territory and seized 334 Ukrainian settlements in 2025. The ISW said it had “observed evidence indicating a Russian presence in 4,952 square kilometres (1912 sq miles)” and 245 settlements.

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii said territory amounting to 0.8 percent of Ukraine’s 603,550sq km (233,032sq miles) had been lost. at the cost of almost 420,000 dead and wounded Russians.

People’s News Monitoring Service