New Delhi: Ukraine launched a drone barrage at St. Petersburg on Saturday, the final day of Russia’s premier investment forum, hours after President Vladimir Putin rejected a proposal for talks with Kyiv and ahead of a scheduled meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday night is expected to host Ukraine’s president along with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to discuss a path to engage Moscow in negotiations to end the war, at a time US-led efforts with Russia have gone dormant.
Putin on Friday rejected Zelenskyy’s call to meet and negotiate an end to the war, now well into its fifth year, which the Ukrainian president made in a lengthy open letter on Thursday that suggested Switzerland, Turkey and Arab countries as potential venues.
“I see no sense” in holding a meeting with Zelenskyy, Putin said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. The Russian leader said he’d skimmed through Zelenskyy’s letter and said the tone was “rude.”
Saturday’s drone strikes at St. Petersburg, about 1,000 kilometers (650 miles) north of Kyiv, and the surrounding region set a defense ministry facility ablaze and disrupted operations at Russia’s second-largest commercial airport for several hours.
Russian air defense shot down 144 drones over the Leningrad region, Governor Alexander Drozdenko said in post on Telegram, describing it as an unprecedented assault. Kronstadt, the naval base on Kotlin Island, west of the city, was briefly closed to traffic, the district administration said.
Confirming the strikes via social media, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was targeting the Russian navy’s arsenals as well as Kronstadt. Separately, an oil depot in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia was struck, he said.
Explosions were recorded at Kronstadt naval base, a hub for the basing, repair and support of Russia’s Baltic Fleet, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement on Facebook. The Petergofskaya oil depot and Neste oil terminal in the city of Lomonosov in the Leningrad region were hit, as well as a logistics support center in Bolshaya Izhora.
The Leningrad region is a key commodities export hub in northwestern Russia that has been repeatedly targeted by Ukraine this year, including attacks that damaged energy export terminals. No damage to ports or export infrastructure was confirmed from Saturday’s attack.
The two sides continued an exchange of drone fire into Sunday. Russia’s defense ministry said it intercepted 95 Ukrainian UAVs overnight across over a dozen regions. Ukraine reported attacks from 236 Russian drones of which 215 were shot down in the north, south and east of the country.
This report is auto generated from the Bloomberg news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
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