Ukraine targets St. Petersburg as ‘Putin’s Davos’ gets underway

(CNN) — Moscow downed hundreds of drones over its territory late Tuesday, regional officials said, after Kyiv launched a major attack reaching as far as the Russian capital as an economic forum drawing thousands of attendees gets underway.

Russian air defenses intercepted and destroyed more than 350 Ukrainian drones over areas both close to the border and deeper into the country including Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the western city of Novgorod, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. At least 60 drones flew over the Leningrad region alone, authorities said.

Three districts of St. Petersburg were targeted in the overnight Ukrainian drone assault, according to its governor Aleksandr Beglov. The strikes wounded several people and damaged infrastructure facilities in the city, which is this week hosting the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, often dubbed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s version of Davos.

Kyiv has intensified attacks hitting key Russian oil assets over the past few months, firing hundreds of long-range drones, squeezing fuel supplies and compounding economic strains for residents. In May, Ukrainian forces carried out their largest assault on the Russian capital in more than a year, state media reported at the time.

On Tuesday, Ukraine also launched strikes on “critical infrastructure facilities” situated in Smolensk, a city in western Russia close to the Belarus border, the governor Vasiliy Anokhin said.

Two firefighters were killed there while trying to extinguish a blaze “caused by debris from a downed enemy drone,” Anokhin said, adding that two other firefighters and one civilian sustained minor injuries.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky reported “positive results” from long-range strikes against “key targets,” including the St Petersburg oil terminal, one of the largest oil transshipment complexes in northwestern Russia. The terminal plays a “crucial role” in Russian fuel exports and logistics, according to the general staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Other targets included “military targets at the Kronstadt base,” an island naval port near St Petersburg, and a facility in the Tambov region that Ukraine said was involved in the production of Russian weapons, Zelensky added.

“Ukraine’s plan for long-range strikes is being carried out exactly as needed to bring peace closer,” the Ukrainian president said.

Footage posted by Zelensky showed fiery explosions and several blazes at one Russian facility. In another of the clips, a huge plume of thick, black smoke is seen behind a high-rise building.

Ukraine has this year rapidly developed its medium and long-range drones to attack Russian targets, including Moscow’s oil facilities and other locations far beyond the front lines.

Economic forum

The attacks came as the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, or SPIEF, began in the city on Wednesday.

Twenty thousand people from more than 100 countries have confirmed their participation at the forum, Russian state media TASS reported on Tuesday, citing Putin’s aide, Yury Ushakov. Putin will deliver a “grand speech” to an audience on Friday, Ushakov told reporters.

Among those high-profile guests are the American far-right podcaster Candace Owens, and the US Commission of Fine Arts Chairman Rodney Mims Cook, Jr, according to the forum program. Appointed to the government commission by President Donald Trump, Cook is the first US official to attend the forum since 2017.

The controversial social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate also posted that they are in Moscow, though it is unclear if they are attending the forum.

The airspace around St. Petersburg international airport was restricted on Wednesday morning, leading to delays of around two dozen flights, the airport said in a statement.

Moscow and Kyiv have escalated aerial bombing in recent weeks. Just on Tuesday, Russia launched a lethal barrage hitting the capital Kyiv and the central city of Dnipro in a broad-ranging offensive that inflicted one of the deadliest attacks for months.

At least 23 people were killed in the overnight assault, including seven people in Kyiv and 16 others in Dnipro, according to Ukrainian authorities.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said he “strongly” condenmed the attacks, in which more than 600 drones and dozens of missiles were fired on Ukraine, according to the military, hitting key civilian infrastructure.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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