U. S. President Donald Trump has said he does not consider reports of a Ukrainian strike on the state residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin to be credible.

Trump made the remarks while speaking to reporters aboard a flight to Washington from West Palm Beach, Florida, where he spent the Christmas and New Year holidays at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Journalists asked why he had previously criticized Kiev when commenting on the alleged incident. Trump explained that at the time he had very limited information and was hearing about the situation for the first time. He noted that during a recent conversation, President Putin told him that an attack had supposedly targeted his residence.

According to Trump, subsequent checks cast serious doubt on that account. He said that something may have happened in the vicinity, but it had no direct connection to the president’s residence. Trump added that while he had initially been told the residence was attacked, later verification did not confirm that version of events.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that on the night of December 29 the Kiev regime carried out what he described as a terrorist attack on the state residence of the Russian president in the Novgorod region. Lavrov said the raid involved 91 unmanned aerial vehicles, all of which were destroyed by air defense systems.