Ukraine has launched a blistering assault on the Russian city of St Petersburg, the second of its kind in a week. Residents of Russia’s second-largest city, were told not to leave their homes as Ukrainian drones hit military and industrial targets more than 1,000 kilometres from their launch sites, underscoring the country’s growing ability to hit deeper and deeper into Russian territory.
The attack came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin refused an offer to meet his Ukrainian counterpart. St Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov said three people sustained minor injuries in the attack.
He advised residents not to go outside and warned of possible disruptions to mobile internet service, while regional governor Alexander Drozdenko said 141 drones were shot down over the surrounding Leningrad region in what he called an “unprecedented attack”.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 376 Ukrainian drones.
“Last night, our drones covered a distance of about 1,000 kilometres to the St Petersburg region – to the enemy navy’s arsenals and a base in Kronstadt,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote of the attack on X.
Although no casualties were immediately reported, the renewed attack on St Petersburg strikes a further embarrassing blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to cast the conflict as a distant event that does not affect Russian daily life.
Saturday’s attack follows a Ukrainian drone strike that set ablaze an oil terminal in the city and hit a nearby naval base on Wednesday, hours before the opening of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Mr Putin’s annual showcase for investment.
Speaking at the forum, Mr Putin said on Thursday that Russia will strengthen its air defences to counter recent Ukrainian drone attacks, which have reached deep inside his country and cast a cloud over the event in his home city of St Petersburg.
Mr Putin on Friday rejected a proposal by Mr Zelensky for a face-to-face meeting on the four-year-old conflict, saying he sees “no point” in it.
Thursday’s letter, the first public message Mr Zelensky has written directly to Mr Putin since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, featured a sweeping critique of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power, as well as some taunts about his age.
Responding to Mr Putin’s dismissal of the proposed meeting, Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said on 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”.
