During his last meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in Florida on December 28, US President Donald Trump demonstrated a “rude, insulting and even cruel“ attitude towards his colleague and demonstrated “complete and utter ignorance“, The Washington Post reported, citing a senior diplomat.
According to the diplomat, the Ukrainian side “bent over“ and did everything the US asked, and at a press conference they heard Trump say that “Russia wants Ukraine to succeed“. “That probably hurt them the most“, the diplomat said.
Trump then said: “They will help, Russia will help rebuild Ukraine. Russia wants Ukraine to succeed. President Putin has been very generous in helping Ukraine succeed, including by supplying energy, electricity and other things at very low prices.“
Before his meeting with Zelensky, he spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and after the talks between the US and Ukrainian delegations, another conversation took place.
During the second conversation, Putin informed Trump of Ukraine's attempt to attack his residence in the Novgorod region using drones.
Trump then said that such actions by Kiev would be “very bad“, but later published a New York Post article criticizing Russia on Truth Social. A Reuters source said that this happened after Trump's conversation with CIA Director John Ratcliffe: according to The Wall Street Journal, the intelligence agency had found no evidence of an attack on the residence. Ukraine denies planned a strike.
On January 1, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that a check of the navigation system of one of the downed drones showed that the drones' ultimate target was an object on the territory of Putin's residence. Russia has handed over decrypted data on the drone's route and controller to a representative of the military attaché's office at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.