Name: US CIA debunks Russia claim that Ukrainian drones attacked Putin’s home, says US media | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-01-02T16:58:33.000Z
Duration: 6 min 36 s
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US Media reports say the CIA has concluded there is no evidence that Ukraine targeted one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's residences with drones.

Moscow's released footage that it says shows a drone used in the attack.

Basic passive voice

But according to reports, America's Central Intelligence Agency determined that that drone activity was aimed at a military site.

Donald Trump initially said he was very angry about the alleged Ukrainian action, but

news reports say he has said he has voiced doubts since.

Since receiving a CIA briefing, Ukraine has consistently denied targeting the Russian leader's residents.

Let's see what this means with our Russia analyst Konstantin Eggert, who joins us from the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.

Where do you think this reported CIA intelligence leaves those Russian claims?

And having here, it leaves those claims where they are or were from the beginning.

And even if you look at, let's say, Prime Minister Modi of India and the Pakistani leadership that expressed some kind of sympathy with Putin, it was all very carefully worded like alleged attack and things like that.

I do not think that anyone, including in the US Believed that this is true.

Moreover, the Russians, the Russian General Staff said on that same day that there were.

I forgot whether it was 80 drones or something like that that were launched by Ukrainians against Russia.

So essentially, before this claim was made by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, the number of drones did not correspond to the 91 drones that were allegedly targeting Putin's residents.

So even inside the Russian system, there was no coordination.

So my suspicion, Phil, is that it was an impromptu sort of idea to pressure the U.S.

ukrainian delegations, or talks, rather, in the direction of less results and more chaos.

So I think it's a PR disaster, frankly, for the Russians.

But it does seem foolhardy to launch such a disprovable claim.

You, you know, America has got satellites and spies all over the place.

It surely would have occurred to someone in the Kremlin that at some stage someone would go, no, that's just nonsense.

And you know, Phil, interestingly enough, Russian opposition media based outside of Russia, of course, they immediately said it's verifiable in a matter of half an hour, whether this claim is correct or not.

But I think that indeed those sort of produced this idea and convinced Putin to, and

at least his closest town to rush to air it.

These people actually are working towards the chief because Putin's entourage, Putin's environment resembles a medieval court.

And I think that the feeling in Moscow at the time was that the US Ukrainian talks are not going in Russia's favor, and

as with many Russian improvisations, it was disastrous and completely not believable.

And now we have the spectacle of Donald Trump sharing a news article on social media that was very critical of Vladimir Putin.

And the article calling for more pressure on Russia.

Well, frankly, it's quite a sleepy day because of the 1st of January, so not much official reaction to that.

And frankly speaking, I do not think that the official reaction will follow because it's going to disrupt and basically undermine Russia's plans to continue cajoling Donald Trump into keeping some kind of at least conversation with the Kremlin.

I think if you look at 2026, this is the number one task for the Kremlin, not to have Donald Trump disengage from Moscow and launch a new wave of potentially extremely hurtful sanctions.

And when the holidays are over, when the festive days are over, the Russians will try to pretend that, you know, everything's hunky door, everything's fine.

We are going back to business as usual, discussing the discussions about the discussions that may lead to some kind of peace deal.

And so does that mean that those discussions about discussions about discussions have actually had a lot of play, a lot of airtime there in Russia, because we've talked about it nonstop over on this side.

I wonder how it's been covered over in, over there.

Well, you see, Phil, the coverage by the state media, we're talking about how it is officially spinned in Russia was very clearly much more, let's say it embellished much more.

What's been happening compared to, say, our coverage?

It was always the idea that essentially the Americans and the Russians are very close to agreement.

The problem is a, the Ukrainians who are intransigent and who do not want a deal, and

the Europeans who are kind of prodding and pushing the Ukrainians to be bellicose.

It was always played out as if Russia and America already more or less have an understanding.

And the fault is with the Ukrainians and the Europeans.

And I think that this game will continue at least for some time, because I do not think that Putin has actually any other game to play, unless he just wants to say, I'm not interested in talks, but

then it will create a completely different situation.