Neil MacFarquhar and Ivan Nechepurenko
With talks on ending the Ukraine war making little progress on the toughest issues, Russia issued a dramatic threat on Monday to harden its stance, linking the potential change to what the Kremlin called a failed Ukrainian drone attack overnight targeting a rural residence of President Vladimir V. Putin.
Ukraine immediately denied any such attack, accusing the Kremlin of inventing a pretext to undermine the peace talks being orchestrated by the Trump administration. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who met with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Sunday to discuss a possible deal, called the Russian allegation a “complete fabrication.”
Although both Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky gave an upbeat assessment of their talks, no concrete progress was reported on the two thorniest issues — Russia’s demands that Ukraine cede significant territory in the country’s southeast, and security guarantees that would protect Ukraine against future Russian aggression.
Mr. Trump said that he heard about the alleged attack from Mr. Putin himself during a previously scheduled phone call early Monday to discuss the peace talks. “I was very angry about it,” he told reporters at Mar-a-Lago, though he conceded that he had no independent confirmation that it had occurred.
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