After a new round of talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump on Sunday, which yielded little more than a promise that the leaders would meet again next month and once again exposed how far a peace deal still is, Russia threatened yesterday to change its negotiating position after the alleged Ukrainian attack on Vladimir Putin's residence.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that Ukraine had attempted to attack Putin's state residence in the Novgorod region, prompting Moscow to reconsider its position in the negotiations. According to Lavrov, Ukrainian forces launched an attack on the presidential residence with 91 long-range drones on December 28 and 29, but all of the drones were destroyed by Russian air defenses, he said.
Lavrov, as reported by Reuters, said that targets for retaliatory strikes by the Russian armed forces had already been selected. “Such reckless moves will not go unanswered,” he said, adding that the attack constituted “state terrorism.”
Lavrov stressed that the attack occurred at a time when talks on a possible peace agreement with Ukraine were underway, stressing that Russia would not withdraw from the talks, but that its negotiating position would be revised. It was not immediately clear whether Putin was at the Dolgii Borodi residence, which has been used in the past by Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Boris Yeltsin.
Zelensky yesterday dismissed the allegations of an attack on the residence as a lie, claiming that Moscow was preparing the ground for more attacks on government buildings in Kiev. He said he had “expected” some kind of scandal after a two-hour meeting with Trump in Florida on Sunday, which made “progress” toward ending the conflict. “They don’t want to end this war,” he said. He warned that a Russian strike on government complexes in the capital, similar to the bombing of the Cabinet of Ministers building in central Kiev in September, was now likely.
Ukraine's foreign minister called on world leaders yesterday to condemn Russian "manipulations" over the alleged Ukrainian attack on Putin's residence, saying Moscow was looking for a "false justification" for new strikes on its neighbor. "A common Russian tactic: accuse the other side of what you yourself are doing or planning to do," Andriy Sibikha said in a post on the X network.
Zelensky called on Trump to respond appropriately to Russian threats.
However, Trump said last night that he had a "good phone call" with Putin about the war in Ukraine. He also said that "Putin told me about the attack on his residence" and that he "didn't like it."
Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov also confirmed that Putin and Trump spoke yesterday and noted that the US president was “shocked when Putin told him about the drone attack on the Russian presidential residence.” “Putin told Trump that Russia intends to continue working with the US to achieve peace - but that Russia’s position will be revised after the attack on the residence,” Ushakov said. He stressed that Trump and his key advisers had briefed Putin in detail about the negotiations with Ukraine.
"According to the Americans, during these negotiations the American side resolutely pushed the idea of the need for Kiev to take real steps towards a final resolution of the conflict, without hiding behind demands for a temporary ceasefire," Ushakov said, adding that the Russian side fears that the ideas that Ukraine presented to the Americans could still be interpreted too arbitrarily by Kiev.
Earlier yesterday, Putin, after meeting with senior Russian military officials about the war in Ukraine, said that Moscow was continuing with its plan to seize the Ukrainian areas it declared annexed in 2022 and was making steady progress in that effort.
“The goal of liberating Donbas, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions is being implemented in stages, in accordance with the plan of the special military operation. … The troops are confidently advancing,” Putin said.
The Russian president also ordered the military to continue its offensive with the aim of taking full control of the Zaporizhia region in southern Ukraine, after a Russian commander said Moscow's forces were about 15 kilometers from its largest city.
Yesterday's escalation of tensions came after Trump said on Sunday, after talks with Zelensky, that they were "much closer, maybe very close" to an agreement to end Russia's war in Ukraine, but that "thorny issues" remained.
Trump's decision to speak with Zelensky in Florida on Sunday has raised hopes that at least some progress could be made towards ending what has become the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.
However, despite progress in talks between Trump and Zelensky on security guarantees for Kiev, it was clear even before yesterday's events that there was no progress on disputed territorial issues.
Zelensky said yesterday, on his return to Europe, that two key issues outlined in the 20-point peace proposal - control over Ukraine's Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which is in Russian hands, and the fate of Donbas, a region in eastern Ukraine - remain unresolved.
"Two questions remain: the power plant - how will it function? - and the territory," Zelensky told reporters.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized how far apart Kiev and Moscow are in terms of territory, saying that Ukraine must withdraw its troops from cities in the Donetsk region, and that Kiev will lose more territory if it does not agree to an agreement.
“We are talking about the withdrawal of the regime’s armed forces from Donbas,” Peskov said, adding that Ukraine would lose additional territory if it did not accept the agreement. He declined to comment on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant issue.
After talks with Trump, Zelensky is on his way back to Europe, saying that the US has agreed to offer Ukraine "strong" security guarantees for 15 years. The Ukrainian president, as reported by the Guardian, said that the US Congress and the parliament in Kiev would vote jointly on the US promises, which he said were a key part of the peace plan. Kiev considers these guarantees crucial to deterring possible new Russian aggression in the event of a peace deal.
Zelensky acknowledged that earlier promises had not been effective, including the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which was backed by the US and Britain and guaranteed Ukraine's borders.
The details of the latest US commitments, however, remain unclear, the British newspaper points out. Trump has ruled out sending peacekeeping troops, while Zelensky has said that the presence of international observers in post-war Ukraine would be the best form of security and provide reassurance to citizens.
"We would really like the guarantees to be longer. I told him (Trump) that we would like to consider guarantees for 30, 40, even 50 years, and that would be a historic decision by President Trump. The president said he would consider it," Zelensky added.
Kiev sees these guarantees as crucial to deterring possible new Russian aggression in the event of a peace deal. The details of the latest US commitments remain unclear.
Trump said Sunday that he expects European countries to “take on a large part” of that effort, with support from the United States. Agreeing on such moves could be complicated, as Russia has said any deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine would be unacceptable.
French President Emmanuel Macron said progress was being made on security guarantees, and that countries of the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” would meet in Paris in early January to “finalize concrete contributions.”
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