US President Donald Trump said that US officials have determined that Ukraine did not target Russian President Vladimir Putin's residence in a drone strike last Sunday.
Trump said that "something happened near" Putin's residence, but that US officials had not revealed that it was targeted.
"I don't believe that attack happened. We don't believe it happened, now that we've been able to verify," Trump told reporters on a plane to Washington last night.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that Ukraine had launched a series of drones at Putin's state residence in the Novgorod region in the northwest of the country, which Russian defense systems were able to defeat.
Lavrov also criticized Kiev for launching the attack at a time of intense negotiations to end the war.
The day before, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke in Florida with Trump about the US administration's 20-point peace plan.
Zelensky quickly denied the Kremlin's claim.
European officials have previously assessed that the claim of an attack on Putin's residence is just an attempt by Moscow to sabotage peace efforts.
The American newspaper Wall Street Journal reported at the very end of last year, citing an unnamed US official, that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had determined that there had been no attempt to attack Putin.
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