The UAV fake is a nervous reaction of the Kremlin to the progress achieved following the negotiations between the Presidents of Ukraine and the United States in Mar-a-Lago. In the future, Russia will use the topic of the "attack on Valdai" to justify strengthening its negotiating position, future combined attacks on Ukraine during the New Year holidays, and discrediting the Ukrainian leadership. This was stated by the Foreign Intelligence Service, as reported by UNN.
Details
The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine warns: since 5:00 PM on December 29, Russia has been conducting an information operation to disrupt the agreements reached between the Presidents of Ukraine and the United States.
As part of this operation, the Kremlin accuses Ukraine of a deliberate attempt to attack the residence of dictator Vladimir Putin using 91 UAVs.
The operation began with a corresponding statement by S. Lavrov and was replicated by pro-Kremlin media (TASS, RT). After that, within two hours (until 7:00 PM), S. Lavrov's narratives were picked up and developed by other Russian speakers: Deputy Head of the Russian Foreign Ministry O. Grushko, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Yu. Ushakov, Head of the "Fair Russia – For Truth" party S. Mironov, leader of the LDPR party L. Slutsky, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defense O. Zhuravlev. Such promptness and coordination indicate that the operation was carried out on the instructions of V. Putin and in accordance with the approved "temniki" of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation.
The intelligence agency emphasizes that there are a number of facts indicating that the information about the attack on Putin's residence is fake.
Some of them:
1) throughout December 29, local residents of the Novgorod region did not report a UAV attack and its consequences. Now we see how the Kremlin is trying to rectify the situation by spreading fake messages in Russian social networks (VKontakte) on behalf of alleged residents of the city of Valdai;
2) the absence of factual evidence (fragments, photos, videos) of downed UAVs, which the Kremlin has not been able to present for almost a day since the start of the information operation. But the necessary "evidence" may be brought in in the near future;
3) the Russian Ministry of Defense twice corrected the published reports to match the Kremlin's narratives (first they reported 18 recorded UAVs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, then their number increased to 23).
This is not the first time Moscow has unprovenly and deliberately manipulated the topic of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' attack against Russian facilities. In May 2023, it reported a drone attack on the Kremlin. In May 2025, it indicated that during a visit to the Kursk region, V. Putin's helicopter allegedly came under a "UAV attack epicenter." Subsequently, sources in the Russian government confirmed that it was a staged event, the intelligence agency reminded.
The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine draws attention to the fact that the UAV fake is a nervous reaction of the Kremlin to the progress achieved following the negotiations between the Presidents of Ukraine and the United States in Mar-a-Lago. In the future, Russia will use the topic of the "attack on Valdai" to justify strengthening its negotiating position, future combined attacks on Ukraine during the New Year holidays, and discrediting the Ukrainian leadership. In this context, we hope that the media will properly verify the propaganda disinformation of the Russian Federation and that it will not be used by the Kremlin as a tool for spreading Russian fakes.
Recall
Earlier, Sergey Lavrov stated that "on the night of December 28-29," 91 drones that attacked Putin's residence were shot down. But according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, only 89 were shot down at night (until 7 AM), and throughout Russia.
In addition, Ushakov, after the conversation between Putin and Trump, also stated that drones attacked the residence at night — "practically immediately after" the end of negotiations between the American and Ukrainian presidents (they ended before 2 AM Moscow time).