“What is happening in St. Petersburg looks like you are dreaming,” said a Russian military blogger known by the nickname Reporter Filatov on his Telegram thread. “You’re not connected to the internet and your brain is making up nonsense. You’re just imagining it. It’s just your imagination,” he noted.
“We should have foreseen such raids two years ago,” he returned to reality. “The business elite in St. Petersburg can now see with their own eyes how the Russian Ministry of Defense is violating their share of the so-called social contract,” he commented in his opinion on the insufficient activity of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Social networks were flooded with videos from St. Petersburg, which show a Ukrainian drone flying towards an oil terminal, which it is about to attack. However, it is clear from other footage that the Russian air defense cannot stop him.
Another video shows people shooting at the drone with rifles and handguns. “I’m even more afraid now,” said a user with the nickname Barb, according to the Kyiv Independent portal.
In almost all the shots, columns of smoke can be seen rolling over the oil terminal. “Everything is on fire,” says a female voice in the background of one of the videos, according to the portal. “Should we go down? What should we do?” he asks.
Romanov Light, a Russian military blogger with more than 145,000 subscribers on Telegram, warned that the air quality in St. Petersburg had worsened due to the oil terminal fire. The Ukrainian drone attack destroyed one tank in the loading dock and damaged six others along with two technical platforms.
Dozens of drones flew to St. Petersburg at night.Video: X/Nexta
“Still at war”
“This burning oil terminal should serve as a reminder to the elites who came to the economic forum that they are still at war,” said the blogger. He indicated that the Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov is not fulfilling his duties. “Such Ukrainian strikes are the result of Moscow’s reluctance to focus on Ukrainian decision-making centers,” he added.
Before Putin’s speech at the economic forum on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that Moscow’s response to such attacks would be “systemic”. At the same time, he declared that the Russians are waging war in Ukraine precisely to prevent such strikes.
“A special military operation is necessary to prevent attacks like the one on St. Petersburg,” he explained according to the Nexta portal Peskov. But the Russians launched their invasion of Ukraine in 2022, i.e. at a time when they did not face any similar attacks.
“I would like to remind you of the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which states that our reactions will be systemic. In fact, they are already systemic,” said the spokesman of the Russian president, according to TASS, in response to a question about how Russia plans to respond to the Ukrainian strikes before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
