Ukraine hits St. Petersburg after Putin refuses to meet Zelensky

Residents of St. Petersburg were told not to leave their homes after a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack targeted Russia’s second-largest city on Saturday morning, underscoring Kyiv’s growing ability to hit deep inside Russia.

The attack came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin refused an offer to meet his Ukrainian counterpart.

St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov said three people sustained minor injuries in the attack.

He advised residents not to go outside and warned of possible disruptions to mobile internet service, while regional Governor Alexander Drozdenko said 141 drones were shot down over the surrounding Leningrad region in what he called an “unprecedented attack.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 376 Ukrainian drones.

“Last night, our drones covered a distance of about 1,000 kilometers to the St. Petersburg region - to the enemy navy’s arsenals and a base in Kronstadt,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X, adding that drones also hit an oil depot in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region.

Zelensky described the strikes as a “just response” to Russian aggression against Ukraine.

“It is time to end this war. But Russia’s ruler wants to keep fighting. That is why Ukrainian sanctions against this aggression are working,” he said on X.

“Any manifestation of injustice against Ukraine will receive a just response.”

The renewed attack on St. Petersburg is the latest embarrassing blow to Putin’s efforts to cast the conflict as a distant event that doesn’t affect Russian daily life.

A Ukrainian drone strike set ablaze an oil terminal in the city and hit a nearby naval base on Wednesday, hours before the opening of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin’s annual showcase for investment.

Speaking at the forum, Putin said on Thursday that Russia will strengthen its air defences to counter recent Ukrainian drone attacks, which have reached deep inside his country and cast a cloud over the event in his hometown of St. Petersburg.

Putin on Friday rejected a proposal by Zelensky for a face-to-face meeting on the 4-year-old conflict, saying he sees “no point” in it.

Thursday’s letter, the first public message Zelensky has written directly to Putin since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, was a sweeping critique of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power, as well as some taunts about his age.

Zelensky hit back, saying the Russian leader was “weak” and “choosing war again.”

Responding to Putin’s dismissal of the proposed meeting, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Saturday that things would “only get worse for Russia.”

“Failures will get more humiliating,” he wrote on X, warning that there are “no safe places in Russia that can be exempt” from Ukrainian long-range attacks, and that the intensity of attacks “will continue to grow.”

With the front line barely moving as swarms of drones hinder advances, both sides have sought an edge by launching long-range strikes.

In Ukraine, one person was killed and three wounded overnight into Saturday in the Dnipropetrovsk region, as Russian forces struck three districts nearly 30 times with drones and artillery, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said.

In Zaporizhzhia, seven people sought medical care after a Russian drone strike started a fire at a parking lot, according to regional head Ivan Fedorov.

Agencies