Ukrainian Drones Hit St Petersburg Oil Terminal Ahead Of Russian Economic Forum

Ukraine’s long-range unmanned aerial vehicles have arrived in St. Petersburg, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday. He said it hit and set fire to an oil terminal in St. Petersburg, sending smoke over the hometown of President Vladimir Putin, which hosts Russia’s premier event to attract foreign investment.

Drones flew more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to hit the terminal in Russia’s second-largest city, Zelenskyy said on social media a day after Moscow launched a major attack. drone and missile attack In Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

Without giving details, Russian officials said only that the Ukrainian drone strike was in St. He said he targeted St. Petersburg’s infrastructure. Due to the attack, the city’s airport briefly suspended flights overnight. Authorities cut off mobile internet services.

While the front line barely moves as swarms of UAVs impede progress, both sides attempt to gain the upper hand by launching long-range attacks. The war that followed Large-scale invasion of Russia His neighbor is over four years old and there is no end in sight.

Latest strikes are another embarrassment for Putin, weeks after he cut his annual salary Victory Day parade in Moscow due to fears of Ukrainian drone attacks.

Putin will visit St. Petersburg, which the Kremlin sees as an economic forum, on Friday. He will give a speech in St. Petersburg. prestige event. The meeting is sometimes called Russia’s Davos and is likened to the World Economic Forum held in Switzerland.

Major Western investors and officials have stayed away since Russia launched an all-out war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Saudi Arabia will send a special guest and a large business delegation this year.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine was only targeting “legitimate targets” related to Russia’s war effort and noted that Kiev plans to increase long-range drone strikes. “It’s only a matter of time before we can increase the scale of our own mass strikes,” he told reporters.

St. The attacks on St. Petersburg came a day after Russia’s attack on Ukraine killed 23 civilians and injured 151 people. Moscow followed through on its threat to threaten Ukraine. increases its dams.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russia’s deep attacks have already taken on a “systematic” character.

Ukraine’s own long-range strikes are targeted Russia’s oil production is decreasingAn important source of financing for Moscow and disrupting arms production. Kyiv has repeatedly visited St. It targeted oil facilities in St. Petersburg and nearby ports.

However, there are no American-made Patriot air defense missiles in Ukraine. US stocks are running out by Iran warIt leaves it defenseless against Russia’s ballistic missiles.

Zelenskyy expressed disappointment with his own government officials on Wednesday, saying there was an agreement at the “highest political level” to purchase Patriot systems, but implementation was delayed due to financial, legal and technical considerations.

“The wait has been too long,” he said on social media, demanding that authorities lift the purchase block or “serious personnel decisions” would be taken.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who visited Kiev on Wednesday to meet with Ukrainian officials, said that the flow of interceptor missiles from the USA to Ukraine continues. The United States is “doing its best” to continue supplying them, even though it is limited by the rate of production, he told a news conference.

Rutte also said young Russians and their families were “sold an unfair deal” by Moscow because joining the Russian army doomed soldiers to poor training and equipment and a low chance of surviving battlefield wounds.

Other Ukrainian drone strikes overnight set fire to the Russian guided missile corvette Boikiy, which was in dry dock at the Kronstadt naval base, according to Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces. Kronstadt, St. It is the former base of Russia’s Baltic Fleet, located west of St. Petersburg.

Zelenskyy said the drones also hit a Russian manufacturing facility producing weapons in the Tambov region, 600 kilometers (370 miles) from Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 354 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Seven people were killed and 11 others were injured in a Ukrainian attack on a bus traveling from Moscow to the Crimean Peninsula in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to Kremlin-appointed Donetsk chief Denis Pushilin.

Two firefighters were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Smolensk region, according to regional governor Vasily Anokhin. He said two other firefighters and a local resident were injured.

Meanwhile, according to the Ukrainian air force, Russia fired 198 long-range UAVs into Ukraine last night and its air defenses neutralized 189 of them.

Authorities in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region said that one civilian died and 15 civilians, including three children, were injured in Russia’s attacks in the last 24 hours.

Overnight Russian shelling and drone strikes in Southern Kherson killed an 86-year-old woman and injured five others, according to regional officials.

You can follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine