{"id":294429,"date":"2026-06-03T14:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T14:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294429\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T14:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T14:08:10","slug":"ukraine-drones-hit-saint-petersburg-as-economic-forum-starts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294429\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine drones hit Saint Petersburg as economic forum starts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian drones on Wednesday struck energy and military targets in Saint\u00a0Petersburg<\/a> as Russia hosts a major economic forum.<\/p>\n

Officials said a number of infrastructure sites were damaged, though no deaths were reported.<\/p>\n

What do we know about the drone attacks on Saint Petersburg?<\/p>\n

Regional governor Alexander Beglov said “several” facilities were hit on the outskirts of Russia’s second-largest city<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian officials said the attack aimed to disrupt the high-profile gathering, long known as “Russia’s Davos,” which President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend, as well as members of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Reuters news agency quoted witnesses reporting\u00a0thick smoke rising over the edge of the city after\u00a0the strikes.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the drones had hit\u00a0the Saint Petersburg Oil Terminal and the Kronstadt military base in the city. He referred to\u00a0“long-range sanctions,” Kyiv’s term for its own direct attacks on Russian oil and gas infrastructure.<\/p>\n

“Ukraine’s plan for long-range sanctions is being implemented exactly as needed to bring peace closer,” Zelenskyy\u00a0said, posting a video of an oil depot ablaze on social media.<\/p>\n

How has Ukraine’s latest\u00a0attack\u00a0affected Russia so far?<\/p>\n

Governor Alexander Beglov said “several buildings have been damaged” and clean-up operations were under way, without giving further details.<\/p>\n

\"SmokeThe attack overshadowed the opening of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum, literally Image: Stringer\/REUTERS<\/p>\n

Authorities had warned residents and visitors of possible drone attacks via text message ahead of the strikes.<\/p>\n

Smoke was visible from the venue of the\u00a0Saint\u00a0Petersburg International Economic Forum, the\u00a0flagship event hosted by President Putin that runs through Saturday.<\/p>\n

“The Petersburg forum is opening with a nice plume of black smoke in the background after Ukrainian strikes,” said Sergiy Sternenko, a Ukrainian Defense Ministry adviser.<\/p>\n

Putin is set to speak at the event in Saint\u00a0Petersburg, his home city, on Friday.<\/p>\n

The strikes came just ahead of a visit to Kyiv by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte,\u00a0accompanied by the ambassadors of the alliance’s member states<\/p>\n

Edited by Natalie Muller<\/p>\n

Don’t let the algorithm hide the news. If you rely on our team for trusted reporting, please take a moment to select us as your Preferred Source on Google by clicking here<\/a> and hitting the “star” or “preferred” button, so you’ll always see our verified news first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukrainian drones on Wednesday struck energy and military targets in Saint\u00a0Petersburg as Russia hosts a major economic forum.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-294429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}