Following Ukraine's massive drone attack on President Putin's residence in Novgorod, (shown in the projected flight paths in the map above, from the Ukrainian 'Russian' site Meduza) Turkish TRT news interviewed Atlantic Council's Elisabeth Braw in London. What she said in the interview below (trimmed a little for length) might be considered unhinged and simply Western media narrative management, except for her position in the constellation of ex-Cold War think tanks that still guide and follow NATO intelligence agencies - MI6 and the CIA in particular. As Wikipedia notes: "Helena Elisabeth Braw (born December 2, 1973) is a Swedish security expert and former journalist active in Great Britain. She leads the Modern Deterrence project[1] at the defense and security think tank RUSI[2] in London. She is a senior fellow of the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council.[3]" The Scowcroft Centre is strongly focused on Eastern Europe and on the coordination of institutions to cultivate anti-Russian disinformation, with links to the UK's Integrity Initiative and ex-Soviet state media networks. Braw meanwhile has written in detail on what she labels Russia's 'grey zone aggression' - where non-military activities are used to achieve similar goals under the radar. She expounded on these alleged activities to the UK parliament in April 2024, and has focused particularly on threats to undersea cables and pipelines.
What is astonishing about this interview is that Braw even manages to twist Donald Trump's strong reaction to what he heard direct from Vladimir Putin about the attempted strike, into some sort of dismissal of it, and an increasing mistrust in Russia. While this may be the case - as Trump is both fickle and vulnerable to manipulators - we can guess how he would react were he told the truth about the Ukrainian New Year's drone attack on a small family restaurant on the coast in Kherson - where three explosive and incendiary drones totally obliterated the building, killed 24 civilians and wounded 50 more. Ironically in the interview above, footage following that attack is shown without acknowledgement. Fortunately perhaps for those 'lying for Kiev', a tragic fire in a disco in Switzerland on New Year's Eve monopolised media coverage and sympathy - though the attack on Kherson was barely described and dismissed by Ukraine as a lie. But in both cases, Russia has the evidence, and is presenting it to the American embassy. The CIA denies that Ukraine was targeting Putin's residence, claiming military target near by - but given the CIA's obligatory involvement in targeting and execution of such attacks, has zero credibility. Most Western media parrot the CIA line, including the so-called Moscow Times, now subject to restrictions on its anti-Russian line. Further exploring this highly significant manipulation of information about the Ukrainian drone attack - for which there is now substantial and undeniable evidence, as Russia submits parts from a drone's guidance gear to US representatives in Moscow - it is useful to review 'before and after' videos of the White House press conference on December 29th 2025. In the first report, broadcast by SBS on December 30th, Trump demonstrates his natural reaction to the news of the drone attack on Putin's residence, conveyed to him earlier in a phone conversation with the Russian President following Trump's meeting with Zelensky:
But three days later, and following the spreading of the Atlantic Council’s alternative version across all Western media that the story was made up to hinder the ‘peace process’, SBS correspondent Ben Lewis repeated his false assertions. This was despite Russia’s production of videos showing destroyed drones, as illustrated in the report below. The report also includes the revised version of Donald Trump’s claims, following pressure from the deep state, and probably from the man standing beside him.
They may think they are just playing with words, but for Russia they are playing with fire…
DM 3rd January 2026