Scores of Ukrainian drones target St Petersburg in attack Russia calls ‘unprecedented’
Russian officials say Ukraine has launched an “unprecedented offensive” in and around St Petersburg as the city hosts the final day of Russia’s annual economic forum.
Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said more than 140 drones had been shot down in the surrounding Leningrad region, while the city’s governor, Alexander Beglov, appealed for people to stay indoors for the first time since the beginning of the war.
Ukraine’s president said his forces hit Russia’s arsenals and a naval base, calling it a fair response to Russian attacks.
This came just a day after the Russian President gave a speech at the forum in which he said there was no point in meeting Zelensky, who called for direct negotiations on ending the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesnky said on social media on Saturday that “it is time to end this war” but accused Putin of wanting to “keep fighting.”
He said his country’s drones traveled 1,000 km (620 miles) to the St Petersburg area and targeted “enemy navy arsenals and a base in Kronstadt”.
An oil depot in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region (500 km (310 miles) away) was also hit, the official added.
This follows an open letter Zelensky sent on Thursday calling for face-to-face talks with Vladimir Putin to end the war, which began with a full-scale invasion of Russia in 2022.
He wrote that it would be “wrong to expect” the conflict to once again attract US attention.
On Friday, Putin rejected the meeting request, reiterating his position that peace talks should come before a ceasefire.
He said he would end the war only when Russia’s goals were achieved.
Russia’s long-standing position is that Ukraine should withdraw from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions and abandon its efforts to join NATO.
Meanwhile, in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, Moscow-appointed authorities suspended bus services on two highways following a campaign of drone attacks targeting Ukraine’s Russian logistics.
They urged locals not to use them “for safety reasons”.
The Russian-backed administration also banned suburban train services and transportation of children’s groups in Luhansk.
Putin had said that Russia was in full control of the so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic”.
In recent weeks, Ukrainian drones have been targeting Russian logistics in the occupied regions of Ukraine.
One analyst told the BBC that more than 200 trucks and more than 30 fuel trucks have been hit since the beginning of May.
