Ukraine Strikes St. Petersburg as Base Naval Comes Under Drone Fire

Residents of St. Petersburg were told not to leave their homes on Saturday morning after a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack reached the city. Regional officials said drones were intercepted over the surrounding Leningrad region, where the attack also put a base naval site in focus.

Alexander Drozdenko said 141 drones were shot down over the Leningrad region, while St. Petersburg Gov. Alexander Beglov said three people sustained minor injuries. Russia’s Defense Ministry put the wider figure at 376 Ukrainian drones.

Zelenskyy cites Kronstadt

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the drones covered about 1,000 kilometers to the St. Petersburg region and reached “the enemy navy’s arsenals and a base in Kronstadt.” Zelenskyy also said Ukrainian drones hit an oil depot in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region.

The strike followed an earlier drone attack on Wednesday that set ablaze an oil terminal in St. Petersburg and hit a nearby naval base before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum opened. That earlier attack made the city a repeated target, not a one-off incident.

Putin rejects direct talks

The drone attack came after Vladimir Putin rejected Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s proposal for a face-to-face meeting on Friday, saying there was “no point” in it. Andrii Sybiha responded that things would “only get worse for Russia,” adding that there are “no safe places in Russia that can be exempt” from Ukrainian long-range attacks.

At the same time, the Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 272 strike drones overnight into Saturday and that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 249. Oleksandr Hanzha said one person was killed and three were wounded in Dnipropetrovsk region, and Ivan Fedorov said seven people sought medical care after a Russian drone strike started a fire at a parking lot in Zaporizhzhia.

Russia and Ukraine exchange strikes

The exchange showed both countries pressing long-range drone campaigns while the ground war remained largely static. For residents in St. Petersburg, the immediate step was the order to stay inside while air defenses worked over the city and the wider region.

The next clear diplomatic marker is Putin’s refusal to meet Zelenskyy face to face, which has already sharpened the language around the drone war and pushed the confrontation deeper into Russian territory.