Russia threatens to toughen its stance on ending the war in Ukraine
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 12 minutes ago
- 4 min read
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and IVAN NECHEPURENKO
With talks on ending the Ukraine war making little progress on the toughest issues, Russia issued a dramatic threat Monday to harden its stance, linking the potential change to what the Kremlin called a failed Ukrainian drone attack overnight targeting a rural residence of President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine immediately denied any such attack, accusing the Kremlin of inventing a pretext to undermine the peace talks being orchestrated by the Trump administration. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, who met with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Sunday to discuss a possible deal, called the Russian allegation a “complete fabrication.”
Although both Trump and Zelenskyy gave an upbeat assessment of their talks, no concrete progress was reported on the two thorniest issues — Russia’s demands that Ukraine cede significant territory in the country’s southeast, and security guarantees that would protect Ukraine against future Russian aggression.
Trump said that he heard about the alleged attack from Putin during a previously scheduled phone call early Monday to discuss the peace talks. “I was very angry about it,” he told reporters at Mar-a-Lago, though he conceded that he had no independent confirmation that it had occurred.
“It’s a delicate period of time,” Trump said, noting that although both sides were on the offensive, “It’s another thing to attack his house.” He suggested that he had blocked the sale of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine to prevent just this kind of attack.
In a statement from the Kremlin summarizing the call, Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said that “Russia’s position regarding a number of previously reached agreements and emerging solutions will be revised” in light of the attack. He added, “The Americans must treat this with understanding.”
Russia did not present any clear-cut evidence of the claimed attack, which it said was aimed at a residence of Putin’s in the Novgorod region. The accusation was first made by Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, in a statement from the ministry.
The fact that both Lavrov — generally outspoken in presenting hard-line positions that might annoy the White House — and the Kremlin made similar statements suggested that Russia was both eager to paint Ukraine as the obstacle to peace, and primed to swing back to the maximalist position espoused by Putin in terms of demands on Ukraine.
Georgi Bovt, an analyst of Russian politics, said in a post on Telegram that the Kremlin might expand its territorial claims to “the entirety of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions,” referring to two Ukrainian regions under partial occupation by Russian troops.
Meeting with senior commanders in the Kremlin on Monday, Putin said Russian troops were only about 9 miles from the city of Zaporizhzhia, the provincial capital and a major industrial center. He ordered the offensive to continue to capture the city “in the near future.”
Zelenskyy, in his post on the social platform X, said that Russia was trying “to justify additional attacks against Ukraine, including Kyiv, as well as Russia’s own refusal to take necessary steps to end the war.”
Since invading in 2022, Russia has seized most of the area known as the Donbas, consisting of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Over the past weeks, Russia has been vocal in its demands for Ukraine to withdraw completely from the Donbas, threatening to toughen its stance should Ukraine remain intransigent.
Lavrov claimed that 91 drones attempted to attack Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region, northwest of Moscow, overnight Monday, but that all of them were shot down by air defense systems. The Russian military has designated targets for “retaliatory strikes,” he said.
The provincial governor, Alexander Dronov, said in a series of statements Monday morning that 41 drones had been shot down over the region but did not specify their target.
The Russian statements did not name the residence, but the Novgorod region is the site of one of Putin’s most secretive hideouts. Located deep in a forest on the shore of a lake, the residence — commonly known as the Valdai, after a nearby town — is a private retreat where Putin never hosts public events.
In 2021, a team of Russian investigators led by Alexei Navalny, Putin’s main political opponent until his death in a Russian prison in February 2024, published a report about the residence. It depicted a lavish, highly private estate consisting of multiple buildings, including a Chinese-themed pavilion, a private church and a giant spa.
Another investigative report claimed that the site included a special station for an armored train used by the Russian leader.
In May 2023, two drones exploded over Putin’s main official residence in the Kremlin in what Russia called an unsuccessful “attempt on the life of the president” by Ukraine. At the time, Ukraine denied any involvement in the incident, but U.S. officials said it was likely orchestrated by one of Ukraine’s special military or intelligence units.