Russian Defence Ministry provides evidence for alleged Ukrainian drone strike on Putin residence

The Russian Defence Ministry published a map on Wednesday which it claimed plots the flight paths of Ukrainian drones heading towards Vladimir Putin’s residence at Valdai in Russia’s northwestern Novgorod region before they were destroyed by air defence systems on Sunday.

The ministry said that the attempted attack on Putin’s residence involved some 91 drones. Of those, 41 were shot down over the Novgorod region itself, while another 49 were destroyed over the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, with the final drone being intercepted over the western Smolensk region.

Major General Alexander Romanenkov of the Russian Aerospace Forces said that the drones had been launched at about 7:20pm on Sunday from sites in the Sumy and Chernihiv regions of northern Ukraine, both of which border Russia. 

Romanenkov added that as the attack had been repelled, there were no casualties and Putin’s Valdai residence had suffered no damage.

The ministry also published footage of debris from an intercepted Ukrainian drone, which it said was from a drone that had been used in the attempted attack on the Valdai residence. Romanenkov said that “the number of drones involved” and the fact that they were heading “straight for the area of the residence” in the Novgorod region was solid confirmation that the Kyiv regime’s terrorist attack had been “deliberate and carefully planned”. 

Kyiv immediately dismissed the Russian claims that it was behind the alleged attack, however, saying it was an attempt by Moscow to disrupt the ongoing US-led peace negotiations to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.