Ukraine strikes St. Petersburg with hundreds of drones as Putin rejects Zelensky meeting at economic forum

The attack

Ukraine launched a large-scale drone assault on Russia in the early hours of Saturday, with many of the unmanned aircraft aimed at St. Petersburg and its surrounding Leningrad region. Russia's defence ministry said air defences intercepted a total of 376 drones across 13 regions, the Republic of Crimea, the Republic of Abkhazia, and over the Azov and Black Seas. More than 140 drones were shot down over the Leningrad region alone, according to governor Aleksandr Drozdenko, who described the barrage as an unprecedented attack.

St. Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov issued a rare call for residents to stay indoors during the assault, the first such recommendation since the war began, according to the BBC. He later said Russian air defences prevented any damage and that three people with minor injuries had been discharged from care. One report, however, cited four wounded, including a child, with debris from a downed drone causing a fire at a defence ministry facility in Bolshaya Izhora. Over 600 people were evacuated from the area.

Targets and damage

Ukraine's SBU security service said the strikes hit the Kronstadt naval base and the 15th Arsenal of the Russian Navy in the Leningrad region. In the southern town of Ust-Labinsk, drones set an oil depot ablaze. In the western Tver region, falling drone debris killed one man, according to local officials. Zelensky said the drones flew roughly 1,000 kilometres to reach the St. Petersburg area and about 500 kilometres to strike the Krasnodar fuel depot.

Tonight, our drones travelled a distance of about a thousand kilometres to the St. Petersburg region, to the enemy navy's arsenals and a base in Kronstadt.

A Ukrainian unit commander, Yevhen Karas, told the BBC the operation faced little resistance.

We fly in Russia as if it were our own territory. There is almost no resistance; it is not difficult to hit a target.

The diplomatic backdrop

The strikes came hours after Vladimir Putin, speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), rejected Zelensky's proposal for direct talks. Putin said he saw "no point" in meeting the Ukrainian leader until a peace deal had been agreed. Zelensky responded by calling the Russian leader "weak" and accused him of "choosing war again."

It is time to end this war. But Russia's ruler wants to keep fighting. That is why Ukrainian sanctions against this aggression are working.

Ukraine's foreign minister Andriy Sybiga added that Putin had "lost his chance to get out of his failed war." The US-led diplomatic push to end the conflict, now in its fifth year, remains stalled.

Russia's retaliation

Russia launched 272 drones at Ukraine on the same night, according to Ukrainian armed forces, with 249 intercepted. Strikes were reported in the Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Mykolaiv regions, leaving at least four dead and several wounded. Both sides have intensified long-range drone warfare in recent months.

The forum

SPIEF, often called "Russia's Davos," drew guests from more than 130 countries and, for the first time in several years, a US delegation. The forum proceeded largely as if the war did not exist, according to one report, despite columns of black smoke from a drone strike greeting participants on arrival earlier in the week. The Wednesday attack had already struck a warship at Kronstadt, the main Russian naval base in the eastern Baltic.