Romanenko reported that Ukrainian UAVs operating in a group approached Putin's residence. The drones were detected around 19:20 on December 28, when they were reportedly flying at low altitude from the Sumy and Chernihiv regions. The strike was directed from several directions — through the Bryansk, Smolensk, Tver, and Novgorod regions.
According to him, there were 91 attacking drones, all of which were destroyed by air defense systems, and the residence remained unharmed. To support his claims, the Russian Ministry of Defense presented a map of the alleged attack.
The Ministry of Defense published a map of the "attack" on Putin's residence in Valdai.
Earlier, on December 29, Vladimir Putin, in a conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump, accused Ukraine of attempting to attack his residence and stated the possibility of revising the approach to negotiations, characterizing the raid as an "act of state terrorism."
However, the governor of the Novgorod region and the Ministry of Defense did not report such a large-scale attack. According to data published on the morning of December 29, 41 drones were shot down in the region — 18 at night and 23 in the morning. It has not been officially confirmed that the target of the raid was indeed Putin's residence, nor is it clear how the target could have been established if no drone reached it. Later, the Russian Ministry of Defense issued a statement about repelling a "terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime using 91 strike UAVs."
In response to these accusations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called them fake. In an interview with The Insider, he noted that reports of the raid on the "Valdai" residence are aimed at slowing down the peace process and are a reaction to negotiations between the Ukrainian and American delegations.
Additionally, the Cheka-OGPU project reported on December 30 about an alert declared at the railway station in Valdai, which services a secret branch used by the President of the Russian Federation. However, station employees claimed that there were no sounds of drones or air defense operations. Despite instructions to prepare for evacuation, it did not take place, and soon the alert was canceled without explanation.
