Drone barrage hits Russia: Ukraine pounds St Petersburg region; civilians killed on both sides

Ukraine fired hundreds of drones at Russia early Saturday, leaving one person dead and setting an oil depot ablaze on the final day of the country’s flagship economic forum in Saint Petersburg, officials said. The attack comes hours after President Putin spoke there and refused a proposal for talks with Kyiv.

The strikes on the city and the surrounding region set a defence ministry facility ablaze and disrupted operations at Russia’s second-largest commercial airport for several hours. Russian air defence shot down 144 drones over the Leningrad region, Governor Alexander Drozdenko said in a post on Telegram, describing it as an unprecedented assault.

A fire broke out at a defence ministry site in the Lomonosovsky district, prompting a partial evacuation of nearby residents. Kronstadt, the naval base on Kotlin Island, was briefly closed to traffic, the administration said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed strikes on the St. Petersburg region and said they were targeting the Russian navy’s arsenals as well as Kronstadt.

An oil depot in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia was also struck, Zelenskyy said on social media. Separately, Russian authorities reported that the area affected by a fire at the Ust-Labinsk oil depot in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia is 54,000 sq ft.

Russia, meanwhile, kept up its own attacks – at least 12 civilians were killed and over 70 injured across Ukraine over the past day, authorities said on Saturday.
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