Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Russia will not withdraw from the negotiation process to end the war in Ukraine after the alleged attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence.
He said US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin maintain the “trusting nature of the dialogue” and continue it.
“Russia is not withdrawing from the negotiation process, and Russia will continue the negotiation process and dialogue. First of all, with the Americans,” he said.
Peskov told reporters that the consequence of the alleged attack would be to strengthen Moscow’s negotiating position. He said Russia was not going to publicly explain what the revision of its negotiating position would consist of.
The day before, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Ukraine of attacking Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in Valdai. Lavrov claimed that on the night of 29 December Kiev allegedly launched 91 drones at Putin’s state residence, all the drones were destroyed.
The Russian minister said that because of the attack, Moscow would reconsider its position in the talks “taking into account the Kiev regime’s final shift to a policy of state terrorism.” Russia has identified targets for retaliatory strikes and the time of their task, Lavrov said.
The statement came against the backdrop of Ukraine-US talks on a peaceful settlement of the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Lavrov’s statement “another lie” aimed at justifying strikes on Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump said he learnt about the attack from Putin and was “very furious”. However, he admitted it was “possible” that the Russian Federation accusation was false and there was no such attack, before adding: “But President Putin told me this morning that this is what happened.”