Ukrainian drones targeted the Russian city of St. Petersburg on the first day of an annual international economic forum in the city as Ukrainian forces launched a major drone attack across several Russian regions, a day after massive Russian strikes across Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces shot down a total of 354 drones over 15 Russian regions, Crimea, and the Sea of Azov. The ministry said that at least two emergency workers were killed and two others were wounded by a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Smolensk Oblast.
In Leningrad, the region surrounding St. Petersburg, the governor said a total of 59 drones were intercepted, and several people were injured.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian drones targeted an oil terminal in St. Petersburg and posted a video of black smoke bellowing from what appeared to be an oil facility in the city. “The distance from Ukraine’s state border to this facility of Russia’s oil industry, which serves the war, is about 1,100 kilometers,” he wrote on X.
Ukraine is known to use intelligence from the US and NATO for its long-range drone strikes, and the US has helped build up Ukraine’s drone industry, meaning that such attacks always risk a potential escalation between Russia and NATO.
Ukraine’s drone swarm came a day after Russia launched what it said was part of its response to a May 22 Ukrainian drone attack that hit a college in Starobelsk in the Luhansk Oblast and killed 21 students. According to Ukrainian officials, at least 22 civilians, including two children, were killed in the Russian strikes, which the Russian Defense Ministry claimed targeted military facilities and buildings linked to Ukraine’s “military-industrial sector.”
