The Kremlin appears to be counting on Donald Trump to legitimize its claims of a Ukrainian attack on President Vladimir Putin’s home—an attack the U.S. president was “very angry” about until he learned it never happened.
In a televised meeting in Moscow on Thursday, a top Russian military chief presented a U.S. military attaché with part of a drone the Russian Defense Ministry claims was used to attack Putin’s residence a day after Trump said he was close to reaching a deal with Ukraine’s president to end the war.
Admiral Igor Kostyukov, head of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of Russia’s Armed Forces, told the U.S. official the drone part would serve as proof of the Ukrainian attack and “without question” reveal the “truth.”
“The decryption of the content of the memory of the navigation controller of the drone, carried out by specialists of Russia’s special services, confirms without question that the target of the attack was the complex of buildings of the Russian president’s residence in the Novgorod region,” Kostyukov said, according to Reuters.
The carefully staged presentation of the drone part came shortly after Trump walked back his initial view of the disputed drone attack, sharing an anti-Putin editorial on social media, reportedly after the CIA told him he’d fallen for a made-up attack.
The bombshell allegation came after Trump had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over the weekend, and it was widely seen as an effort to win Trump back over to Moscow’s side in negotiations to end the war. Initially, it appeared to have worked, with Trump venting frustration and the Kremlin boasting that the American leader was “literally outraged.”
It’s not clear if the Kremlin’s new “evidence” might see Trump change his mind again.
But they appear to have set the bar very low: multiple drone hobbyists and Ukrainian military bloggers have noted that the specific model of flight controller highlighted by the Kremlin—a MATEK H743—is typically used for shorter range flights and would likely not be capable of covering the hundreds of miles required to strike Putin’s country residence.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it intercepted 91 Ukrainian drones targeting Putin’s residence in what it described as an assassination attempt. Moscow has also released images of what it says was a downed Ukrainian drone on Russian soil.
The claim was quickly dismissed by Ukraine, with the CIA also concluding that Kyiv had not targeted the presidential residence. U.S. intelligence concluded that Ukraine did attempt to hit a Russian military target located in the same region as Putin’s residence, but not the home itself, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Trump initially appeared convinced of Russia’s account after a phone call with Putin.
When asked if the U.S. had evidence of the alleged attack, Trump replied: “You are saying maybe the attack didn’t take place—that is possible too, I guess—but President Putin told me this morning it did.”
The Kremlin has tried to play to Trump’s ego in the back-and-forth over the bogus drone attack, with Putin’s longtime spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, framing it as a Ukrainian attempt to “disrupt President Trump’s efforts” to secure peace.
The White House has not yet commented on the drone part handed over for inspection.
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