Officials in St. Petersburg warned citizens to remain indoors Saturday morning following a massive Ukrainian drone assault on Russia’s second-largest city, demonstrating Kyiv’s expanding capability to strike targets far within Russian territory.
The drone operation occurred one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin declined a meeting proposal from his Ukrainian counterpart.
St. Petersburg Gov. Alexander Beglov reported that three individuals suffered minor injuries during the assault. He recommended residents stay inside and cautioned about potential mobile internet service interruptions, while regional Gov. Alexander Drozdenko reported that 141 drones were intercepted over the surrounding Leningrad region in what he described as an “unprecedented attack.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that its air defense systems destroyed 376 Ukrainian drones.
“Last night, our drones covered a distance of about 1,000 kilometers to the St. Petersburg region — to the enemy navy’s arsenals and a base in Kronstadt,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X, adding that drones also hit an oil depot in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region.
This latest assault on St. Petersburg represents another damaging setback to Putin’s attempts to portray the conflict as a remote situation that doesn’t impact ordinary Russian life.
A Ukrainian drone strike ignited an oil terminal in the city and struck a nearby naval facility Wednesday, just hours before the start of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin’s annual investment showcase.
During the forum, Putin announced Thursday that Russia would bolster its air defense capabilities to address recent Ukrainian drone strikes, which have penetrated deep into his country and overshadowed the event in his home city of St. Petersburg.
Putin on Friday rejected a proposal by Zelenskyy for a face-to-face meeting regarding the 4-year-old conflict, stating he sees “no point” in it. Thursday’s letter, the first public message Zelenskyy has written directly to Putin since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, was a sweeping critique of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power, as well as some taunts about his age.
In response to Putin’s dismissal of the proposed meeting, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Saturday that things would “only get worse for Russia.”
“Failures will get more humiliating,” he wrote on X, warning that there are “no safe places in Russia that can be exempt” from Ukrainian long-range attacks, and that the intensity of attacks “will continue to grow.”
With the front line barely moving as swarms of drones hinder advances, both sides have sought an edge by launching long-range strikes.
In Ukraine, one person was killed and three wounded overnight into Saturday in the Dnipropetrovsk region, as Russian forces struck three districts nearly 30 times with drones and artillery, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said.
In Zaporizhzhia, seven people sought medical care after a Russian drone strike started a fire at a parking lot, according to regional head Ivan Fedorov.
Russia targeted Ukraine overnight with 272 strike drones, and air defenses shot down 249 of them, the Ukrainian air force said Saturday.
