• New York attorney general to perform Mamdani’s swearing-in.
• Ceremonial inauguration on Thursday outside New York City Hall.
• Block party organised to enable New Yorkers watch ceremony.
  

Zohran Mamdani, a young upstart of the US left, was readying on Wednesday to take over as New York mayor for a term sure to see him cross swords with President Donald Trump.

After the clocks strike midnight, bringing in 2026, Mamdani will take his oath of office at an abandoned subway stop, taking the helm of the United States’ largest city. He will be New York’s first Muslim mayor.

His office says the understated venue for the oath-taking reflects his commitment to working people, after the 34-year-old Democrat campaigned on promises to address the soaring cost of living.

But it remains to be seen if Mamdani — virtually unknown a year ago — can deliver on his ambitious agenda, which envisions rent freezes, universal childcare and free public buses.

Once an election is over, “symbolism only goes so far with voters. Results begin to matter a whole lot more,” New York University lecturer John Kane said.

What Trump does could be a decisive factor.

The Republican, himself a New Yorker, has repeatedly criticised Mamdani, but the pair held surprisingly cordial talks at the White House in November.

Lincoln Mitchell, a political analyst and professor at Columbia University, said that the meeting “couldn’t have gone better from Mamdani’s perspective.”

But he warned their relationship could quickly sour.

One flashpoint might be immigration raids as Trump wages an expanding crackdown on migrants across the United States.

Mamdani has vowed to protect immigrant communities.

Before the November vote, the president also threatened to slash federal funding for New York if it picked Mamdani, whom he called a “communist lunatic.”

The mayor-elect has said he believes Trump is a fascist.

Block party

Mamdani’s private swearing-in at midnight to start his four-year term will be performed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who successfully prosecuted Trump for fraud.

A larger, ceremonial inauguration is scheduled for Thursday with speeches from left-wing allies Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Around 4,000 ticketed guests are expected to attend the event outside City Hall.

Mamdani’s team has also organised a block party that it says will enable tens of thousands of New Yorkers to watch the ceremony at streetside viewing areas along Broadway.

The new job comes with a change of address for Mamdani as he swaps his rent-controlled apartment in the borough of Queens for the luxurious mayor’s residence in Manhattan.

Some had wondered if he would move to the official mansion given his campaigning on affordability issues. Mamdani said he is doing so mainly for security reasons.

Born in Uganda to a family of Indian origin, Mamdani moved to New York at age seven and enjoyed an elite upbringing with only a relatively brief stint in politics, becoming a member of the New York State Assembly before being elected mayor.

Compensating for his inexperience, he is surrounding himself with seasoned aides recruited from past mayors’ offices and former US president Joe Biden’s administration.

Mamdani has also opened dialogue with business leaders, some of whom predicted a massive exodus of wealthy New Yorkers if he won. Real estate leaders have debunked those claims.

As a defender of Palestinian rights, he will have to reassure the Jewish community of his inclusive leadership.

Recently, one of his hires resigned after it was revealed she had posted antisemitic tweets years ago.

Russia’s defence ministry published a video on Wednesday of a downed drone that it said Ukraine launched at President Vladimir Putin´s residence in northwest Russia this week — a claim Kyiv has branded a “lie”.

Moscow made the allegation shortly after Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky held talks with US President Donald Trump in Florida and Kyiv has called it a “fabrication” intended to “manipulate” the peace process.

The European Union also said the video was an attempt to “derail” peace efforts.

But Russia has called it a “terrorist attack” and a “personal attack” against Putin, saying it will toughen its negotiation stance in Ukraine war talks.

The video, shot at night in the dark, showed a damaged drone lying in snow in a forested area. The ministry said the alleged attack was “targeted, carefully planned and carried out in stages”.

Russia has not said where Putin was at the time, claiming the attack was launched on the night of December 28-29 at Putin’s home in the Novgorod region. His residences are normally kept a close secret.

The defence ministry said the attack started around 7pm on December 28 and was a “mass” drone launch at Putin’s residence, but said the longtime leader’s home was not damaged.

It also published a video with a man it called a witness, saying he was a local villager from the settlement of Roshchino.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which documents the Ukraine-Russia conflict, said Tuesday it had not seen any “footage or reporting that typically follows Ukrainian deep strikes to corroborate the Kremlin’s claims of Ukrainian strikes threatening Putin’s residence in Novgorod Oblast”.

Russian officials have rallied around Putin since the claim. The Russian leader, in power since December 1999, has told Russians in recent weeks that Moscow intends to seize the rest of Ukrainian land he has proclaimed as Russian by force if diplomacy fails.

“Kremlin officials are using the alleged Ukrainian strike against Novgorod Oblast to justify Russia´s continued insistence that both Ukraine and the West capitulate to Russia´s original demands from 2021 and 2022,” the ISW said this week.