Ukraine didn’t target Putin residence in a drone strike as Kremlin claims: Donald Trump

President Donald Trump on Sunday (January 4, 2026) told reporters that U.S. officials have determined that Ukraine did not target a residence belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a drone attack last week, disputing Kremlin claims that Mr. Trump had initially greeted with deep concern.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week said Ukraine launched a wave of drones at Mr. Putin’s state residence in the northwestern Novgorod region that the Russian defence systems were able to defeat. Mr. Lavrov also criticized Kyiv for launching the attack at a moment of intensive negotiations to end the war.

The allegation came just a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had travelled to Florida for talks with Mr. Trump on the U.S. administration’s still-evolving 20-point plan aimed at ending the war, and had Mr. Zelenskyy quickly deny it.

Mr. Trump said that “something happened nearby” Mr. Putin’s residence but that Americans officials didn’t find the Russian President’s residence was targeted.

“I don’t believe that strike happened,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he travelled back to Washington on Sunday (January 4) after spending two weeks at his home in Florida. “We don’t believe that happened, now that we’ve been able to check.”

Mr. Trump addressed the U.S. determination after European officials argued that the Russian claim was nothing more than an effort by Moscow to undermine the peace effort.

But Mr. Trump, at least initially, had appeared to take the Russian allegations at face value. He told reporters last Monday (December 29, 2025) that Mr. Putin had also raised the matter during a phone he had with the Russian leader earlier that day. And Trump said he was “very angry” about the accusation.

By Wednesday (December 31, 2025), Mr. 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 lambasted Mr. Putin for choosing “lies, hatred, and death” at a moment that Mr. Trump has claimed is “closer than ever before” to moving the two sides to a deal to end the war.

The U.S. President has struggled to fulfill a pledge to quickly end the war in Ukraine and has shown irritation with both Mr. Zelenskyy and Mr. Putin as he tried to mediate an end to a conflict he boasted on the campaign trail that he could end in one day.

Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelenskyy said last week they made progress in their talks at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on a 20-point peace plan.

But Mr. Putin has shown little interest in ending the war until all of Russia’s objectives are met, including winning control of all Ukrainian territory in the key industrial Donbas region and imposing severe restrictions on the size of Ukraine’s post-war military and the type of weaponry it can possess.