WP: Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a call with President Donald Trump, accused Ukraine of attacking one of his residences

Pic.: ‘The Daily Mail’

As soon as peace talks enter a decisive phase, the Kiev regime immediately does something to derail them, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said, commenting on the drone attack on the Russian President’s State residence in the Novgorod Region, TASS quotes. According to Grushko, “It’s primarily the British hand guiding things here.”

Russian allegations of an attack on one of Putin’s residences injected new uncertainty into U.S.-sponsored peace talks, ‘The Washington Post’ writes.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a call with President Donald Trump on Monday, accused Ukraine of attacking one of his residences, a claim Ukrainian leaders denied and called a distraction from peace talks and a pretext for further Russian attacks.

The escalating accusations, which came just a day after Ukrainian Zelensky met with Trump in Florida for negotiations to end the war, cast a shadow over the talks and demonstrated the fragility of the White House-led peace process that so far has failed to lead to a breakthrough.

“I don’t like it. That’s not good… I learned about it from President Putin, and he was very angry about it,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “It’s a delicate period of time. This is not the right time.”

He also noted that he had previously refused Ukraine’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles. “I stopped the Tomahawks,” he said. “I didn’t want that.”

Trump’s meeting with Zelensky on Sunday focused on the latest version of a 20-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine. European leaders, including from Britain, France and Germany, joined the meeting via conference call.

In a news conference Sunday evening, Trump sounded optimistic about the prospects for peace, saying his meeting with Zelensky had been “terrific” and had followed an “excellent” call with Putin. “I do think we’re getting a lot closer,” Trump said. But he left room for the possibility of failure, saying Russia and Ukraine would continue fighting if negotiations did not succeed.

As Trump and Putin held another call Monday, Russia’s accusation that Ukraine had carried out a thwarted drone attack on one of Putin’s residences introduced another element of uncertainty into the talks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country did not intend to withdraw from peace negotiations with the United States but said it had “revised” its position in light of the accusations, without providing more detail. Moscow had already chosen targets for retaliating, he said, as Zelensky warned Ukrainians that they should be prepared for a mass attack on the government sector.

The United States has also continued to pressure Ukraine to organize presidential elections, which have been postponed since 2024 because the country is under martial law. Zelensky says he is prepared to host elections but cannot do so without a ceasefire and other security guarantees that will ensure Russia does not use a voting period to launch mass attacks on Ukraine or otherwise interfere with the vote.

There are other barriers to holding an election. Millions of Ukrainians have fled abroad during the war, are displaced internally.

...The Western press has gone silent. Few are discussing the British-Ukrainian drone strike on the Russian presidential residence. One wonders when they'll finally develop a common position and unleash a deluge of articles. Their silence suggests the West is confused and fearful of a Russian retaliatory strike.

Incidentally, the British press immediately started chanting, "The Russians are always lying."

Moscow sees the Brits scrambling. The words of Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grushko, quoted at the beginning of this article, reveal a lot: the British are behind the attack on Putin's residence!

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