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US President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that US officials have determined that Ukraine did not target a residence belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a drone attack last week, disputing Russian claims Trump initially called “deeply concerning”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week that Kyiv had launched a wave of drones at Putin’s state residence in the northwestern Novgorod region, that Russian air defence systems were able to intercept and thwart.
Lavrov also criticised Ukraine for launching the attack at a moment where global efforts designed to bring an end to the fighting through diplomacy were amplified.
The allegation came just one day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelled to Florida to meet with Trump in his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, and discuss the still developing US 20-point peace plan for his embattled country.
Zelenskyy quickly denied the allegations levelled against Kyiv. Trump on Sunday noted that after extensive investigation into the allegations, Washington did not find that Ukraine targeted Putin’s residence, but acknowledged that “something” happened in the area.
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 travelled 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 US 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 week on Monday that his Russian counterpart had also raised the matter during a phone call 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.
The editorial slammed 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 US president has struggled to fulfil a pledge to quickly end the war in Ukraine, which he promised to deliver within 24-hours of taking office, and has shown irritation with both Zelenskyy and Putin as he tried to mediate an end to the fighting.
Both Trump and Zelenskyy said last week they made progress in their talks at Trump’s Florida resort.
But Putin has shown little interest in ending the war until all of Russia’s maximalist demands are met, including retaining control of all Ukrainian territory in the key eastern Donbas region and imposing severe restrictions on the size of Ukraine’s post-war military and defence capabilities.
Additional sources • AP