The Kremlin has escalated its campaign to prove a Ukrainian assassination attempt on President Vladimir Putin, releasing video of “wreckage” and handing over navigation data to U.S. diplomats in an effort to upend ongoing peace negotiations.
The Russian Ministry of Defence released detailed video footage on January 1, 2026, claiming to show fragments of 91 Ukrainian drones that allegedly targeted the presidential residence in Valdai earlier this week. In a high-stakes diplomatic move on Friday, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, head of Russia’s GRU intelligence, met with a U.S. military attaché in Moscow to hand over what he called “unequivocal proof”: decrypted memory files from a captured drone navigation system.
The “evidence” is meant to silence international skepticism after Kyiv and Washington initially dismissed the incident as a staged “false flag” operation.
- The “Proof”: The video features Major-General Alexander Romanenkov standing alongside a downed Chaklun-V drone. Russian specialists claim they extracted a “flight mission file” from the drone’s memory that explicitly set the Valdai residence in the Novgorod region as its target.
- Technical Claims: Kostyukov told U.S. representatives the navigation systems were “well-preserved and technically sound,” allowing for a full reconstruction of the flight path from Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions.
- The Negotiating “Harden”: Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that while Russia won’t pull out of the 20-point peace plan talks, it will now “harden” its position, using the alleged attack to demand deeper security concessions from Kyiv.
Conflicting Narratives
Despite the footage, the international community remains deeply divided over whether the attack actually happened:
- Kyiv’s Rebuttal: Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi called the footage “laughable,” suggesting Russia is simply “preparing the ground” for its own retaliatory strikes on government buildings in Kyiv.
- Local Reports: Independent sources and residents in the Valdai area noted a suspicious lack of noise on the night of December 28–29. They reported hearing no air defenses or explosions, which would be unusual during a “swarm” of 91 drones.
- U.S. Assessment: CIA Director John Ratcliffe reportedly briefed President Donald Trump that current U.S. intelligence suggests Ukraine did not target the residence, prompting Trump to share an editorial labeling the claim as “bluster.”
“The decryption of the navigation controllers… unequivocally and accurately confirmed that the target of the attack was the complex of buildings of the residence of the President,” Admiral Igor Kostyukov said during the meeting with U.S. officials.
“The lies of the Russian Federation are clear. They viewing any progress between Kyiv and Washington as a setback and will try to provoke a rupture in relations,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded.
Also Read / ‘State Terrorism’: Russia claims 91-drone attack on Putin’s home; Zelenskyy calls it a ‘fabrication’.
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