Residents of St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, were told not to leave their homes after a "large-scale" Ukrainian drone attack targeted the city on Saturday morning, underscoring Kyiv's growing ability to hit deep inside Russia. The strike took place a day after the Russian president refused an offer to meet his Ukrainian counterpart. St. Petersburg Gov. Alexander Beglov advised residents not to go outside and warned of possible disruptions to mobile internet service, while Regional Gov. Alexander Drozdenko said 141 drones were shot down over the surrounding Leningrad region, per the AP.
Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 376 Ukrainian drones. "Last night, our drones covered a distance of about [620 miles] 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 is the latest embarrassing blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to cast the conflict as a distant event that doesn't affect Russian daily life. A Ukrainian drone strike 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, Putin's annual showcase for investment.
Speaking at the forum, Putin said on Thursday that Russia will strengthen its air defenses to counter recent Ukrainian drone attacks, which have reached deep inside his country and cast a cloud over the event in his hometown of St. Petersburg. Putin on Friday rejected a proposal by 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 Zelensky 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 and included some taunts about Putin's age.
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, per a regional head. In Zaporizhzhia, seven people sought medical care after a Russian drone strike started a fire at a parking lot, according to another regional head. Russia targeted Ukraine overnight with 272 strike drones, and air defenses shot down 249 of them, the Ukrainian air force said Saturday.
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