Russian authorities said Ukraine launched an unprecedented drone attack on and around Saint Petersburg on Friday, the final day of Russia’s annual economic forum. For the first time since the war began more than four years ago, city governor Alexander Beglov urged residents to stay indoors.
The scale of the barrage was laid out by Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko, who said more than 140 drones were shot down over the surrounding Leningrad region. He also said the attacks caused a fire at an unspecified military facility, forced residents to be evacuated and left buildings with only insignificant damage. The immediate threat was enough to turn one of Russia’s most visible showcase events into a day of alarms.
The attack matters because it reached the St Petersburg region itself, not just distant Russian border areas, and it did so while the city was hosting a forum built to draw foreign investment. Thousands of guests from 130 countries were in attendance, including a low-key US delegation, even as the Kremlin tried to project control and normalcy.
Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian drones had covered 1,000km to reach the St Petersburg region, hitting what he described as enemy navy arsenals and a base in Kronstadt, while an oil depot in the southern Krasnodar region was also struck. He posted a blunt message that it was time to end the war, but Yevhen Karas, a Ukrainian commander, said it was very easy to hit targets inside Russia and boasted that drones flew there like they owned the territory.
That sits awkwardly beside Vladimir Putin’s refusal on Friday to meet Zelensky at the forum. Putin said there was no point in such a meeting and repeated that he would end the war only when Russia’s goals had been met, shutting down the direct talks Zelensky had been publicly pressing for as the fighting widened deeper into Russian territory. The unanswered question now is not whether the war is spilling into places that once felt far from it, but how much further Russia can absorb before its own showcase events stop looking secure.
