Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, confirmed that his forces struck Russian arsenals and a naval base in what he called a fair response to Russian attacks
Russian authorities say Ukraine has launched an “unprecedented attack” on St. Petersburg and surrounding areas as the city hosts the final day of Russia’s annual economic forum.
Russian anti-aircraft defenses shot down 376 Ukrainian drones in 14 Russian regions overnight. More than 140 drones were shot down over the Leningrad region, Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said. At the same time, the city’s mayor, Alexander Beglov, asked residents to stay in their homes for the first time since the start of the war more than four years ago.
Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, confirmed that it is a naval base in what he called a fair response to Russian attacks. This comes a day after Vladimir Putin said at the forum that there was no point in meeting Volodymyr Zelensky, who would stop the war.
The commander of one of the Ukrainian units involved in the drone strikes told the BBC it was “very easy” to hit targets inside Russia. “We fly in Russia as if it were our own territory. Almost no resistance, it’s not difficult to hit a target,” said Yevhen Karas, commander of the 413th Strike regiment of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.
Residents of St. Petersburg reported seeing clouds of smoke rising from the area around the Kronstadt Naval Plant, a Russian naval shipyard located approximately 30 kilometers from St. Petersburg. Governor Drozdenko said Ukraine’s attacks caused a fire at an unspecified military facility and that residents were evacuated. He also said that the buildings suffered “insignificant” damage.
The Ukrainian army confirmed that it had hit an oil depot and terminal in the Leningrad region. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported a fire and secondary detonations at the 15th Arsenal of the Russian Navy, in the Leningrad region, where missiles and ammunition are stored.
Zelensky said his country’s drones traveled a distance of 1,000 km to the Saint Petersburg region, targeting “enemy navy arsenals and a base in Kronstadt”, where the main outpost of the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet is located. According to Zelensky, an oil deposit 500 km away in the southern Krasnodar region was also hit as part of Ukraine’s “far-reaching sanctions”. The attack caused a fire at the oil depot in the city of Ust-Labinsk, in the Krasnodar region, in southern Russia, which has since been extinguished.
The Ukrainian president also said that it is “time to end this war”, but accused the Russian leader of wanting to “continue fighting”.
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. 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…
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Volodymyr Zelensky (@ZelenskyyUa)
Following the reported attacks, all entry into and exit from Kronstadt was briefly banned, local transport authorities announced. “All these military installations support the operations of the Russian naval group in the Baltic Sea,” the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said.
In the Luhansk region, in eastern Ukraine, occupied by Russia, authorities installed by Moscow claim to have suspended bus service on two motorways following a campaign of attacks with Ukrainian drones against Russian logistics. They asked local residents not to use them “for safety reasons”. The Russian administration also banned the service of suburban trains and the transport of groups of children within Luhansk. Putin stated that Russia fully controls the so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic”.
These latest attacks follow Ukrainian attacks on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, just days before the start of Putin’s main economic forum. The important forum, designed to attract foreign investment to the country, brought together thousands of guests from 130 countries, including a discreet US delegation – the first in many years.
In his open letter to Putin on Thursday, Zelensky called for a ceasefire and direct negotiations with the Russian leader to end the war, which began with the full-scale invasion of Russia in 2022. He wrote that it would be “wrong to simply wait” for the conflict to return to US attention. President Donald Trump has been involved in efforts to mediate an end to the conflict, but the war with Iran has recently gained priority.
In his speech at the economic forum on Friday, Putin refused the request for a meeting with Zelensky and reiterated his position that a truce would only allow Ukraine to reorganize itself. He stated that he would only end the war when Russia’s objectives were achieved.
Russia’s long-standing position is that Ukraine should withdraw from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which it largely occupies, and abandon efforts to join NATO. But Ukraine refuses to cede any territory, arguing that concessions to Moscow would encourage it to invade again in the future.
