Ukrainian long-range drones struck an oil terminal in St. Petersburg and set it ablaze, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday, sending smoke billowing over the city where President Vladimir Putin was born as it hosts Russia’s leading event for attracting foreign capital.
The drones flew more than 600 miles to hit the terminal in Russia’s second-largest city, Zelenskyy said on social media, a day after Moscow launched a major drone and missile attack on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.
Russian authorities said only that the Ukrainian drone strike targeted St. Petersburg’s infrastructure, without providing details. The city’s airport briefly suspended flights overnight because of the attack. Authorities cut off mobile internet services.
With the front line barely moving as swarms of drones hinder advances, both sides have sought an edge by launching long-range strikes. The war that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor is more than four years old, with no end in sight.
Ukraine’s drone successes embarrass Putin
The latest strikes are another embarrassment for Putin, weeks after he pruned back an annual Victory Day parade in Moscow because of fears of Ukrainian drone attacks.
Putin is set to speak on Friday at the economic forum in St. Petersburg that the Kremlin views as a prestige event. The gathering is sometimes called Russia’s Davos, likening it to the World Economic Forum held in Switzerland.
Major Western investors and officials have stayed away since Russia launched its all-out war against Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Saudi Arabia is a special guest this year and is due to send a large business delegation.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine aimed only at “legitimate targets” related to Russia’s war effort and indicated that Kyiv plans to escalate its long-range drone attacks. “It is only a matter of time when we will be able to increase the scale of our own mass strikes,” he told reporters.
The strikes on St. Petersburg came a day after Russia’s attack on Ukraine killed 23 civilians and wounded 151 other people, as Moscow followed through with its threat of escalating its barrages.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Russia’s deep strikes have already taken on a “systematic” character.
Ukraine needs more air defense help
Ukraine’s own long-range attacks are aimed at diminishing Russia’s oil production, which is a key source of funding for Moscow, and disrupting weapon production. Kyiv has repeatedly targeted oil facilities in St. Petersburg and nearby ports.
But Ukraine is short of American-made Patriot air defense missiles, in part because of U.S. stocks being depleted by the Iran war, leaving it vulnerable to Russia’s ballistic missiles.
Zelenskyy on Wednesday expressed frustration with his own government’s officials, saying there’s an agreement “at the highest political level” for the purchase of Patriot systems, but implementation is being held up by financial, legal and technical considerations.
“The wait has taken too long,” he said on social media, demanding that officials unblock the purchase or there will be “serious personnel decisions.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, visiting Kyiv on Wednesday for talks with Ukrainian officials, said the flow of interceptor missiles from the U.S. to Ukraine continues. The U.S. is “doing what it can” to keep supplying them although it is limited by the production rate, he told a news conference.
Rutte also said young Russians and their families “are being sold a raw deal” by Moscow, as incorporation in the Russian military dooms soldiers to poor training and equipment and low chances of surviving battlefield wounds.
