“The Russian side clearly stated that such reckless terrorist acts will, of course, not go unanswered and will meet with the most serious response,” Ushakov said. Trump was “literally outraged” by the information, he added.
“He [Trump] said that he could not even imagine such irrational actions,” Ushakov said. “This will undoubtedly affect the approaches of the United States in the context of working with Zelensky, to whom the current administration, as Donald Trump himself said, did not, thankfully, give Tomahawks.”
Putin maintains a residence in Roshchino, north of St Petersburg. While Ushakovs’s statement in English implied Putin’s residence was hit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian air defences destroyed all 91 long-range drones, thwarting the attack.
Ushakov said Russia would now revise its position on issues that it had previously agreed during talks with the US to end the war. “The Americans should treat this with understanding,” he said.
In a further incendiary statement, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who posts propaganda for the Kremlin, called Zelensky “the stinking Kiev bastard” and accused him of derailing peace efforts.
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“He wants war. Well, now at least he’ll have to stay in hiding for the rest of his worthless life,” Medvedev said.
Zelensky strongly denied any such attack took place, calling it a complete fabrication and “typical Russian lies”.
“Ukraine does not take steps that can undermine diplomacy. To the contrary, Russia always takes such steps,” he said. “This is one of many differences between us. It is critical that the world doesn’t stay silent now. We cannot allow Russia to undermine the work on achieving a lasting peace.”
US analysts generally saw the Kremlin’s claims as a ploy to disrupt progress made by Trump and Zelensky when they met at the US president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Tuesday (AEDT).
Putin at a meeting with senior military officers at the Kremlin on Monday.Credit: AP
The two men said they had agreed upwards of 90 per cent of a proposed peace plan, including US and European security guarantees for Ukraine, although there was still disagreement about Ukraine ceding territory to Russia, particularly the Donbas region.
Trump and Putin spoke ahead of the meeting, and again afterwards, in what is emerging as a pattern from the Kremlin to engage directly with the US president before his encounters with Zelensky.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a news conference with Trump on SUnday.Credit: AP
Pro-Ukraine Republican congressman Don Bacon warned Trump against believing Putin’s claims. “President Trump and his team should get the facts first before assuming blame,” he posted on X. “Putin is a well-known boldface liar.”
Meanwhile, Trump also warned the US could support another major strike on Iran were it to resume rebuilding its ballistic missile or nuclear weapons programs.
After his meeting with Netanyahu, the US president suggested Tehran may be working to restore its weapons programs after a massive US strike in June.
“I’ve been reading that they’re building up weapons and other things, and if they are, they’re not using the sites we obliterated, but possibly different sites,” Trump told reporters during the press conference.
“We know exactly where they’re going, what they’re doing, and I hope they’re not doing it because we don’t want to waste fuel on a B-2,” he added, referring to the bomber used in the earlier strike.
Trump also discussed the fragile Gaza peace process with Netanyahu and said he wanted to move to the second phase of the ceasefire deal made in October between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Trump with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago on Monday.Credit: AP
Israel and Hamas accuse each other of major breaches of the deal and look no closer to accepting the much more difficult steps envisaged for the next phase. Hamas, which has refused to disarm, has been reasserting its control as Israeli troops remain entrenched in about half the territory. Israel has indicated that if Hamas is not disarmed peacefully, it will resume military action.
On Monday, Trump heaped blame on Hamas for not disarming more promptly, arguing that Israel had lived up to its side of the deal.
He warned that Hamas was inviting grave consequences. “There will be hell to pay,” Trump said when asked what he would do if Hamas did not lay down its arms.
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Trump also said the US had “hit” an area in Venezuela where boats were loaded with drugs, in what would be the first known time Washington has carried out land operations in that country since a pressure campaign began against President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said. “We hit all the boats, and now we hit the area… It’s the implementation area. That’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”
Asked if the Central Intelligence Agency had carried out the attack, Trump said: “I don’t want to say that. I know exactly who it was but I don’t want to say who it was.”
CNN, citing sources, reported that the CIA had carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela. The strike targeted a remote dock that the US believed was being used by Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store drugs and move them onto boats for onward shipping, according to CNN. Trump has previously said that he has authorised the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan government has not commented on the incident Trump described, and there have been no independent reports of it from Venezuela.
With Reuters
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