Over 400,000 Russians killed, wounded for 0.8 pc of Ukraine in 2025

Al Jazeera :

Russia finished 2025 with what Ukraine described as an information operation designed to avoid engaging in peace talks and continue its war, despite suffering staggering casualties for meagre territorial gains this year.

On Monday, December 29, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Ukraine of attempting to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin at his residence at Lake Valdai, 140km (87 miles) northeast of Moscow.

“The Kyiv regime launched a terrorist attack using 91 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on the state residence of the president of the Russian Federation in the Novgorod Region.

All the UAVs were destroyed by the air defence systems of the Russian Armed Forces,” said Lavrov in a statement. He did not say whether Putin was in residence at the time.

Lavrov’s Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, quickly dismissed the claim. “Almost a day passed and Russia still hasn’t provided any plausible evidence to its accusations of Ukraine’s alleged ‘attack on Putin’s residence’. And they won’t. Because there’s none. No such attack happened,” Sybiha said.

Russia produced photographs of drone debris lying in the snow two days later, but the drone’s location, manufacture and the time of its downing could not be corroborated from them.

“The attack on Putin’s Valdai residence is presumably a Kremlin fake,” wrote the opposition outlet Sota. “Residents of Valdai, where Putin’s ‘Dinner’ residence is located, told Sota that last night they did not hear the work of the air defence, which would have shot down 91 drones.”

Sota also pointed out that drones attacking Valdai “necessarily cross a specially protected airspace with objects of the Strategic Missile Forces, East Kazakhstan region, military aviation, closed administrative units such as Solnechny, Lake, etc.