CIA: Putin lied about the drone attack

Following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit with U.S. President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, optimism was in the air. Zelenskyy agreed to give in on several points of a peace deal; Trump agreed to visit Ukraine to petition parliament to part with some territories; even Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared on board after a phone call with Trump before the meeting. The war’s end is “closer than ever,” President Trump announced. But then Ukraine launched 91 drones at Putin’s residence in Novgorod in an assassination attempt. As a result, Russia said it needed to be “more rigid” in negotiations, and the hopes for peace were dashed. On Wednesday, however, the cia confirmed what Russia-watchers had suspected from the start: The drone attack never occurred. Ukraine vehemently denied carrying it out, and Russia could not produce a shred of evidence proving it (unless you count comically bad AI fabrications). Clearly this was yet another instance of Putin feigning engagement with peace efforts while manufacturing a pretext to reject them and keep killing. To understand why the efforts continue to fail, read “The Roadblock to Peace.”