Residents of the town of Valdai in Russia’s Novgorod region said they neither heard nor saw signs of a large-scale drone attack overnight on Monday despite official claims that nearly 100 Ukrainian drones targeted President Vladimir Putin’s residence there.
Fourteen residents told the independent outlet Mozhem Obyasnit that they received no text alerts warning of a drone threat and did not hear any buzzing sounds or explosions characteristic of a drone attack.
“There was no noise that night, no explosions, nothing,” one resident was quoted as saying. “If something like that had happened, the whole town would have been talking about it.”
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Residents told Mozhem Obyasnit that they usually know when the Russian president visits his residence due to the heavy helicopter traffic accompanying his arrival.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Ukraine’s armed forces had attempted a “massive” drone attack on Putin’s residence using 91 drones, all of which were allegedly destroyed by air defense systems.
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Some say Putin is saying this to derail the peace talks and he’s got only this ridiculous excuse left. Zelenskyy basically called the bluff on the other arguments Putin had and so this story was invented. It does make Russia look so weak.
Well, putin orchestrated apartment bombings decades ago, so this isn’t too much of a stretch.
I guess he didn’t actually want to damage it though, since locals say nothing happened. You’d think he’d at least set off a grenade in the front lawn to make it more convincing.