Ukraine’s long-range drones struck an oil terminal in St. Petersburg and other targets inside Russia, including a weapons production site, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
In a June 3 post on X, Zelenskyy said that “important facilities” within Russia were hit overnight, including the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, which is around 600 miles from Ukraine.
Other sites hit were the Kronstadt military base and a business in the Tambov region involved in weapons production.
“I thank our warriors for their precision. Ukraine’s plan for long-range sanctions is being implemented exactly as needed to bring peace closer,” he said.
Russian authorities said only that the drone strike targeted St. Petersburg’s infrastructure, and provided no further details. The city’s airport briefly suspended flights overnight due to the attack.
St. Petersburg is Russia’s second-largest city and the birthplace of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It is also the site of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a gathering sometimes referred to as Russia’s Davos, likening it to the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland. Major Western investors have steered clear of the event, however, since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
The summit is being held June 3–6, and Putin is expected to speak there on Friday.
In reaction to the attacks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia will continue its operations in Ukraine, specifically aiming to prevent attacks like the one in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.
“As for a specific response to such strikes, information on this is entirely the prerogative of regional authorities and our Defense Ministry,” Peskov said, according to Russia’s state-owned news agency TASS.
“Overall, I can say that the special military operation continues in order to prevent such attacks.”
He added that retaliation “will be systematic. It has already been systematic.”
Strikes on Ukraine
The Ukrainian strikes came a day after Russia launched dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones against Ukrainian cities, killing at least 22 civilians and wounding 138 others.
Officials said six people were killed in the capital Kyiv, with the other 16 killed in Dnipro.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the operations struck military-industrial facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv, Poltava, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Kyiv said that the Russian attacks hit energy and civilian infrastructure as well as residential areas, but did not comment on damage to any military-related sites.
“Today has been a difficult day in Ukraine after a massive Russian strike,” Zelenskyy said in a June 2 post on X.
“Just today, Russian strikes have taken 22 lives in Kyiv and Dnipro, including children. We are doing everything to protect our people, our cities, and our communities. And we are grateful to those who are helping us.”
Bombardments on Both Sides Continue
These are the latest volleys of strikes between Russia and Ukraine in the past few days.
Overnight on June 2, Russia conducted strikes across several areas in Ukraine in retaliation for what it said was a deliberate attack on a student dormitory in Russian-held Luhansk in eastern Ukraine that resulted in the deaths of 21 people. Ukraine had said it had not targeted the students and was aiming at a drone command center.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it had struck key military targets, such as airfields and fuel and transport facilities. It said it used drones and hypersonic missiles to attack several regions, including Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Zaporizhzhia.
Ukrainian authorities said the attacks on Kyiv and other cities had killed at least 11 people and wounded more than 100.
Zelenskyy said in a June 2 post on X that the main strikes were on Kyiv, with dozens of residential buildings and civilian infrastructure damaged.
Kyiv and Moscow both deny deliberately targeting civilians.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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