Moscow. The Russian Defense Ministry on Wednesday released video footage of what it said was a downed drone, in a briefing aimed at demonstrating that Ukraine attempted this week to attack a presidential residence and challenge kyiv’s denials that such an attack took place.
kyiv claims that Moscow has presented no evidence to support its accusations and that Russia fabricated the alleged attack to block progress in talks on ending the war in Ukraine. Officials in several Western countries have cast doubt on the Russian version of events and questioned the existence of an attack.
A video released by the Russian Defense Ministry showed a high-ranking officer, Major General Alexander Romanenkov, laying out the details of how Moscow believes Ukraine attacked one of President Vladimir Putin’s residences in the Novgorod region.
Romanenkov said 91 drones were launched from Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernigov regions in a “painstakingly planned” attack that he said was thwarted by Russian air defenses, caused no damage and injured no one.
The video released by the Ministry included images of a Russian soldier next to fragments of an artifact that, according to him, was a downed Ukrainian Chaklun-V drone carrying a six-kilogram explosive device that had not detonated.
The ministry did not explain how it knew what the purpose of the device was.
Reuters could not confirm the location or date of the images showing fragments of a destroyed artifact. It was not possible to immediately verify the model of the destroyed artifact.
In other images, a man appeared, identified as Igor Bolshakov, from a town in the Novgorod region, who reported that he heard air defense rockets in action.
Ukraine did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the Russian Defense Ministry images.
