Dozens of Ukrainian drones targeted St. Petersburg in Russia, city authorities said Saturday, adding that an oil terminal was hit and a drone crashed in the area of the historic Peterhof complex without causing damage.
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At the same time, the Ukrainian army denied Moscow’s announcement on Friday of the capture of the Ukrainian town of Kostyantynivka, currently the epicenter of fighting on the front.
Russia has shot down around 70 Ukrainian drones over St. Petersburg, the city’s governor, Alexander Beglov, announced on Saturday.
According to him, a drone hit the area of an oil terminal in the Kirovski district of St. Petersburg. A strike which did not cause any casualties and whose “technical consequences” were “resolved”, assured Mr. Beglov.
A downed drone also crashed in Peterhof, in the suburbs of Saint Petersburg, without causing any damage or casualties, again according to Mr. Beglov.
Located on the shores of the Baltic Sea, the Peterhof complex is known for housing an imperial palace with a park decorated with sumptuous fountains, often compared to Versailles.
These strikes against Russia’s second city, where Russian President Vladimir Putin is from, come after a massive Russian attack on Kyiv which left 30 dead this week.
A Russian bombing also left at least 4 dead and 33 injured Friday evening in the center of Sumy, a city in northeastern Ukraine, according to the latest report from local authorities.
Moscow announced that nearly 400 Ukrainian drones attacked more than a dozen Russian regions overnight from Friday to Saturday, causing power and water cuts in the border region of Belgorod.
Drone debris also fell near the port of Vysotsk, north of St. Petersburg and near the border with Finland, said Alexander Drozdenko, the governor of the Leningrad region, where St. Petersburg is located.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Kronstadt naval base in St. Petersburg had been hit during the strikes.
“Ukraine’s defense forces have struck port oil infrastructure that generates revenue for Russia’s war, and there have also been successful strikes on Kronstadt – an important military target,” he said.
Ukraine is increasingly striking Russian towns far from the border in retaliation for daily bombings by the Kremlin army.
Kyiv denies the fall of a key city
On the ground, the front line remained largely unchanged in June in Ukraine, continuing a loss of momentum among Russian troops in recent months, according to AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
In the Ukrainian region of Donetsk (east), the Russian army is concentrating its efforts in Kostyantynivka.
This city is one of the last obstacles on the way to the large cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, under Ukrainian control, the capture of which is the ultimate objective of the Kremlin in the Donbass.
On Saturday, Kyiv denied the fall of Kostyantynivka, announced the day before by Moscow.
“Ukrainian soldiers continue to hold their positions along established defense lines. The situation remains difficult, but it (the town of Kostyantynivka, Editor’s note) is under the control of the Ukrainian Defense Forces,” Ukrainian army spokesperson Andriï Kovaliov told AFP.
“Small groups of infantry (one to three people) managed to infiltrate deep into the combat formations of Ukrainian forces” in this city, but these groups are being “spotted and eliminated,” he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the Russian claim as a “lie”, the day after the appearance on television of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in military uniform, thanking his troops for the capture of the city, of “major strategic importance”.
“If Kostyantynivka was under Russian control, then perhaps Putin would have no problem meeting me there to find a diplomatic path to finally end this war,” Mr. Zelensky mocked, in a message on his social networks.
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly refused to negotiate in person with Volodymyr Zelensky to end more than four years of war sparked by Russia’s large-scale attack on Ukraine.
