“On the morning of June 6, St. Petersburg was the target of a large-scale attack by military drones. Air defense is on standby,” Beglov wrote in the post. “In accordance with the recommendations of the operational staff, I ask the residents of St. Petersburg to stay in their homes and not go out on the street,” he added.
The mayor further warned residents that there may be mobile internet outages. According to The Moscow Times (MT), it was interrupted around 03:40 in the morning local time (02:40 CET). And outages also occur during the morning.
MT recalled that the attacks began only a few hours after Russian leader Vladimir Putin spoke at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, where, among other things, he called for the strengthening of Russian air defense.
According to Alexander Drozdenko, the governor of the Leningrad Region, which surrounds St. Petersburg, Russia’s air defenses repel drone attacks. “Repelling an aerial threat in the Leningrad region. During the repelling of an unprecedented attack, 144 enemy drones were shot down over the territory of our region,” he wrote on Telegram.
He added that the authorities had noticed falling debris in several districts of the Leningrad region. “The damage is not significant: the shards damaged the facades of the houses and the glass. There are no injuries,” he said. He later stated that repelling the enemy attack was over.
Successful interventions
According to the Astra Telegram channel, Ukrainian drones probably hit the Research Institute of Marine Thermal Technology, a key enterprise involved in the development of underwater weapons.
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Zelenskyi announced on the social network an attack on the Russian naval base Kronstadt, which is located near St. Petersburg and where the Baltic Fleet is based.
“Last night, our drones traveled a distance of about 1,000 kilometers to the St. Petersburg area – to the ammunition depots of the enemy navy and to the base in Kronstadt,” Zelensky wrote on the X network on Saturday.
This base is located on the island of Kotlin in the Baltic. It guards the sea approaches to St. Petersburg. According to the Astra channel, the Kronstadt Naval Cadet Military Corps could have been hit in Kronstadt. The Ukrainians hit Kronstadt already on Wednesday night.
The Moscow Times added that in Petěrgof, near St. Petersburg, the Ukrainians hit an oil base that has 11 tanks.
In addition to the Leningrad Region, the Ukrainians also attacked the Krasnodar Region, where, according to the letter, they hit an oil warehouse in Ust-Labinsk. A fire broke out there on an area of about five thousand square meters.
