Ukrainian drones struck an oil terminal in St. Petersburg and set it ablaze in the early hours of 3 June, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, timing the long-range raid to coincide with the opening of the annual economic forum that President Vladimir Putin uses to showcase the resilience of Russia's wartime economy. Smoke over the Baltic port city offered a pointed counterpoint to the forum's choreographed optimism.
Mr Zelensky said the drones had flown more than 1,000 kilometres to reach the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal in the Leningrad region, one of the deepest strikes Ukraine has mounted into Russian territory. He said Kyiv had aimed only at 'legitimate targets' tied to Russia's war effort and signalled that more such attacks were coming, declaring it 'only a matter of time' before Ukraine could increase the scale of its own mass strikes.
Russia's defence ministry said its air defences had shot down 354 Ukrainian drones overnight across several regions, an unusually high figure that, even if only partly accurate, pointed to the size of the assault. Authorities in St. Petersburg briefly suspended flights at the city's airport and cut mobile internet services, standard precautions during drone alerts that nonetheless disrupted a city Russia has largely kept insulated from the war.
The strike came a day after a heavy Russian missile and drone barrage on Kyiv, part of an intensifying exchange of long-range attacks as ground lines around the eastern town of Pokrovsk and elsewhere have moved little. Ukraine has increasingly sought to carry the cost of the war to Russia's energy infrastructure and rear areas, while Moscow has pounded Ukrainian cities and the power grid.
Hosting the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum amid a drone attack underscored the awkward balance Mr Putin has tried to strike, projecting normality to investors and foreign delegations while the conflict reaches ever further into Russian territory. The forum has drawn a thinner roster of Western participants since the full-scale invasion began, leaving Moscow to court partners elsewhere.
Neither side reported casualties from the terminal fire in the immediate aftermath, and the extent of the damage to the facility was not clear. The episode reinforced the trajectory of a war that has settled into a grinding contest of attrition punctuated by deep strikes, with each capital seeking to demonstrate that it can still reach the other.