Following the failure to make a breakthrough in the Mar-a-Lago peace talks Russia accused Ukraine of firing 91 drones at president Vladimir Putin’s official residence and vowed a retaliation and to toughen its conditions for a ceasefire.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy immediately denied the accusation and warned of a new intense missile attack on Ukraine. Accusations and counter accusations have been flying back and forth since. Both Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Zelenskiy made statements blaming the other side.

The situation is now very confusing. Pro-Ukraine supporters claim that the attack shows that Russia has no intention of ending the war and the talks in Florida were yet another ruse by the Kremlin to spin out the process to buy more time for battlefield advances. Putin told his generals the day after the US meeting ended to push ahead with the campaign in Ukraine.

However, there is another, equally plausible explanation. The Kremlin was hoping for Zelenskiy to capitulate at the weekend and when an agreement failed to appear it was simply giving itself an excuse to ratchet up the pressure further. The main take away from the Kremlin’s comment is that: the conditions of an inevitable ceasefire deal are now going to be tougher.

'They are looking for a pretext,' Zelenskiy said on his Telegram channel. He dismissed Russia's claims that Ukrainian drones attempted to attack Putin's state residence as "another lie," warning that Moscow is using the allegation to justify potential strikes, "most likely on Kyiv."

“It is clear that yesterday we had a meeting with Trump. And it is clear that for the “Russians,” if there is no scandal between us and America, and instead we have progress, this is a failure for them, Zelenskiy said. “Because they do not want to end this war. They are capable of ending it only under pressure.”

“Now, with their statement that some residence of theirs was attacked, they are simply preparing — I am convinced of this — preparing, in principle, the ground to launch strikes, most likely on the capital and probably on government buildings,” he said. “This already happened to us in September; there was a missile strike on the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, you remember this. Therefore, everyone needs to be attentive now, absolutely everyone. A strike on the capital may be carried out.”

Tougher terms

Lavrov said that on the night of December 29, Ukraine launched an attack on Putin's state residence in the Novgorod Region using 91 drones, all of which were shot down. According to the head of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in response, Moscow will “revise its negotiating position without completely withdrawing from the negotiations,” and will also “carry out a retaliatory strike,” with the timing and targets already determined.

“We do not intend to withdraw from the negotiating process with the USA,” Lavrov said. “However, given the final degeneration of the criminal Kiev regime, which has turned to a policy of state terrorism, Russia's negotiating position will be revised.”

Russia has been slowly ramping up the pressure in the run up to the Mar-a-Lago talks, significant as US president Donald Trump personally participated and earlier said he would not personally get involved unless a deal was “very close.”

Zelenskiy arrived in Florida with his revised 20-point peace plan, but the US is still backing the 27-point plan thrashed out at a Moscow meeting on December 3 between the US envoys and Putin personally.

In the Mar-a-Lago end the talks failed as no agreement was found on the key questions of territories and security guarantees. The two sides parted saying talks would continue immediately at the level of working groups, but time to close the deal is running out.

Russia ratchets up the pressure

Russia’s strategy is transparent. While most of the attention has focused on the frontline battles in the Donbas for strategically important cities like the battle for Pokrovsk, at the same time the Kremlin has been slowly destroying Ukraine’s power infrastructure.

The campaign began in 2023 when Russia started destroying the non-nuclear power stations, but with most of the generating capacity destroyed by the end of 2024 the tactics changed this summer, when the war transitioned from a drone war to a missile war. Since then Russia has widened its attacks on crucial economic infrastructure to include railway lines and crucial power substations. The attacks on both this year have already exceeded all the attacks on these objects in 2023 and 2024 combined.

The change comes as Russia’s missile production goes into surplus as it is on course to double the number of missiles it produces this year to over 2,000. With dwindling air defence ammo, Ukraine is increasingly unable to protect itself from these attacks and after two years of relative calm, residents of Kyiv are once again to overnight in metro stations as the drones and missiles rain down on the capital and other cities on almost a daily basis.

However, as bne IntelliNews reported, Putin has been pulling his punches on the attacks on the power infrastructure, so far avoiding targeting the key ultra-high voltage 750kV substations. Ukraine has a total of about 90 of these substations, powerful distribution nodes that supply entire cities with power and interconnect the regional power networks.

As the peace talks progress, Russia has begun to hit the 750kV substations. The first strike was in October, knocking out the power to the Sumy region. The second was earlier this month blacking out the whole of Odesa for several days. The most recent was on the eve of the Mar-a-Lago talks, when a third of Kyiv was plunged into darkness just as the mercury falls below zero and snowstorms begin to sweep the country.

The invention of a Ukrainian attack on Putin’s residency – regardless of if it happened or now – is a convenient excuse for Russia to intensify its attacks on these assets in response to what the Kremlin has dubbed Ukraine’s “state sponsored terrorism.” Cutting off the power to Ukraine’s major cities will trigger a fresh humanitarian catastrophe and could possibly spark a fresh wave of refugees escaping freezing conditions in their homes. Indeed, a fresh 150,000 people fled to Germany in the late autumn and Berlin authorities have been warned to prepare for a possible new wave of refugees during the winter, according to bne IntelliNews sources.

But floating the news of an attack on his residency and the extremely belligerent and rapid response to the news can be interpreted as a fresh warning: “do a deal quickly as the terms will only get worse if you don't.”