MOSCOW, Dec 30 (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Tuesday that a Ukrainian drone attack on a presidential residence in the Novgorod region would toughen Russia’s position on a possible peace deal to end the fighting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dismissed the Russian accusations as “another round of lies” aimed to justify additional attacks against Ukraine and to prolong the war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted Ukraine’s denial of the drone attack – and said that many Western media were playing along with Kyiv’s denial.
“This terrorist action is aimed at collapsing the negotiation process,” Peskov told reporters. “The diplomatic consequence will be to toughen the negotiating position of the Russian Federation.”
The Russian military, he said, knew how and when to respond.
“We see that Zelenskiy himself is trying to deny this, and many Western media outlets, playing along with the Kyiv regime, are starting to spread the theme that this did not happen,” Peskov said. “This is a completely insane assertion.”
Peskov declined to say where Putin was at the time of the attack, saying that in light of recent events such details should not be in the public domain.
When asked if Russia had physical evidence of the drone attack, he said air defences shot the drones down but that the question of wreckage was for the defence ministry.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge editing by Andrew Osborn)
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