{"id":298385,"date":"2026-06-06T14:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T14:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/298385\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T14:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T14:03:09","slug":"ukraine-targets-st-petersburg-again-after-putin-rejects-zelenskyys-offer-for-direct-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/298385\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine targets St. Petersburg again after Putin rejects Zelenskyy’s offer for direct talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Residents of St. Petersburg were told not to leave their homes after a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack<\/a> targeted Russia\u2019s second-largest city Saturday morning, underscoring Kyiv\u2019s growing ability to hit deep inside Russia. <\/p>\n

The attack came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin refused an offer to meet his Ukrainian counterpart. <\/p>\n

St. Petersburg Gov. 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 Gov. Alexander Drozdenko said 141 drones were shot down over the surrounding Leningrad region in what he called an \u201cunprecedented attack.\u201d <\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 376 Ukrainian drones.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast night, our drones covered a distance of about 1,000 kilometers to the St. Petersburg region \u2014 to the enemy navy\u2019s arsenals and a base in Kronstadt,\u201d Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X, adding that drones also hit an oil depot in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region. <\/p>\n

The renewed attack on St. Petersburg is the latest embarrassing blow to Putin\u2019s efforts to cast the conflict as a distant event that doesn\u2019t affect Russian daily life. <\/p>\n

A Ukrainian drone strike<\/a> set ablaze an oil terminal in the city and hit a nearby naval base Wednesday, hours before the opening of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin\u2019s annual showcase for investment. <\/p>\n

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

Putin on Friday rejected a proposal<\/a> by Zelenskyy<\/a> for a face-to-face meeting on the 4-year-old conflict, saying he sees \u201cno point\u201d in it. Thursday\u2019s letter, the first public message Zelenskyy has written directly to Putin since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in 2022<\/a>, was a sweeping critique of the Russian leader\u2019s 26 years in power, as well as some taunts about his age.<\/p>\n

Responding to Putin’s dismissal of the proposed meeting, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Saturday that things would \u201conly get worse for Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Failures will get more humiliating,” he wrote on X, warning that there are \u201cno safe places in Russia that can be exempt\u201d from Ukrainian long-range attacks, and that the intensity of attacks \u201cwill continue to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Russia targeted Ukraine overnight with 272 strike drones, and air defenses shot down 249 of them, the Ukrainian air force said Saturday.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents of St. Petersburg were told not to leave their homes after a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack targeted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[125527,125526,125528,202,204,203,199,201,200,5768,35736,10645],"class_list":["post-298385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-alexander-beglov","tag-alexander-drozdenko","tag-ivan-fedorov","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298385","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=298385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}