On the morning of June 3, Ukraine launched a massive drone strike on St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, as a result of which many people were injured (the authorities did not give the exact number), an oil terminal and infrastructure facilities in Kronstadt were hit. According to the Governor of the Leningrad Region, Alexander Drozdenko, 59 drones were shot down over the region that day. The Independent Journalists’ Cooperative correspondent, “Berij,” went to the areas that were bombed He tellsWhat happens in the city after the Ukrainian drone attack – and in the first days of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
“I woke up at 3 a.m. and thought it was a thunderstorm.”
For the first time in a long time, there is real summer weather in St. Petersburg: the temperature in the street is 20 degrees, and the grayness and coldness have disappeared. The sun rises overhead amid rare clouds, as a plume of black smoke rises above the burning oil terminal on Kanonersky Island.
This is the Kirovsky district of St. Petersburg, in addition to the station, there are steel foundries, a tractor plant, the Northern Shipyard and port infrastructure. The industrial facilities are interspersed with residential buildings – one of the typical Soviet building bedrooms, surrounded by greenery.
Relaxed passersby are in no hurry. Families with children relax in the parks. There are no emergency services or police around. It looked like a column of smoke occupying half the sky, causing it to reach St. Petersburg instantly registered No one notices the deterioration of air quality in Kirovsky.
In a park at the intersection of two streets – Stachik and Marshal Zhukov – a woman of about 65 years old in a blue T-shirt and denim shorts is sitting on a bench. She is enjoying the sun, squinting her eyes. The Petersburg woman seemed to have taken a specific position so that black clouds of smoke would not fall into her field of vision.
An elderly man approaches me with a speaker playing the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.”
-Did you hear? – he asks in a calm voice and with a slight smile.
– What exactly?
“I woke up at three in the morning and thought it was a thunderstorm. Then he woke up again, but he didn’t see the clouds. It turned out to be drones,” he answers and continues.
Ukrainian drones have been flying to St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region for a long time. For example, this spring they attacked several times Ust-Luga, a major Russian port on the Baltic Sea and the main maritime hub for oil exports in western Russia.
But the strikes of June 3 stand out from the others: on this day, the International Economic Forum opened in St. Petersburg, which was attended by Russian and foreign politicians, officials, businessmen, journalists and bloggers.
They include misogynistic blogger Andrew Tate, who was convicted of rape, human trafficking and sexual exploitation of minors, and right-wing activist Candace Owens. She is famous for promoting conspiracy theories, especially that the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, Brigitte, is a man.
But Tate, Owens, TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak, philosopher Alexander Dugin, designer Artemy Lebedev (represented Christie’s pre-trial detention center at the Forum) and other guests are unlikely to intend to leave the city center. Outside of it, nothing mentions SPIEF, except for rare situations with its advertisements.
“You would think that according to the forecast, St. Petersburg would have sun all day, but the center looks like this.”
On the night of June 3, the RIA Novosti website published an interview with the governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, in which he said that on the eve of SPIEF, the city had taken “comprehensive security measures”:
The security forces have prepared calculations of forces and means to ensure the safety of citizens and public order, as well as to ensure fire safety in facilities participating in SPIEF.
When the Ukrainian drones arrived in St. Petersburg, no warning systems worked (although they were actually tested around the city the day before). Only early in the morning did Pereg’s correspondent receive a message from the Ministry of Emergency Situations warning of a drone attack.
In the morning, the federal media were talking in full force about the SPIEF platforms, sometimes distracted by the escalation of the war in the Middle East. Another story on state channels was an attack by Ukrainian armed forces on a bus in Yenakievo, the annexed Donetsk region, while traveling from Podolsk to Simferopol, in which eight civilians were killed.
But publications like “Fontanka”, “round” and “Caution, St. Petersburg”still talks about the consequences of the attack of the Ukrainian armed forces. Some even posted drone videos posted by St. Petersburg residents on social media. Although for both journalists and residents of St. Petersburg, as of mid-January 2025, this is fraught with administrative rather than criminal liability.
In addition to the videos, citizens’ opinions about the Ukrainian attack appeared in St. Petersburg chats and groups (the messages were edited, but without changing the meaning):
- “I was asleep and didn’t hear anything. More panic.”
- “Well, in principle, yes, flights are really common, jokes aside. So it’s a routine, don’t worry) You would think that according to the weather forecast in St. Petersburg, there would be sun all day, but the center looks like this.”
- “Let me remind you that Russia has a superweapon that can stop all these drone attacks in 20 minutes.”
- “I remember something, the Northern Military District just started with the words: ‘Otherwise Ukraine will attack us, and we will be at the forefront!’ and ‘If fighting is inevitable, strike first’… Why the hell are we being bombed? Why the hell are we continuing this for the fifth year? The boys died because the president decided that the empire must become bigger? What else needs to happen so that people take to the streets to demand an end to the war???”
By lunchtime the fire at the oil station was extinguished. The only thing that remains unknown is The fate of fifty catsWho lived on the territory of the oil station, caught the attention of Fontanka.
“To prevent such attacks from occurring, the Office of Special Operations Operations continues.”
Many drone videos, which appeared on the Internet despite a government ban, were filmed from the windows of new buildings in the Krasnoselsky district located on the shores of the Gulf of Finland. One home, the Pearl Cascade Apartment Complex, located several kilometers from the oil terminal, was hit by drone debris and damaged the windows on the 11th floor. “Fontanka” booksWhile the drones were flying over the house, its residents were hiding in the underground parking lot.
But normal life returned to Krasnoselsky very quickly. Passersby on the street barely discussed what happened. Just a girl of about 12 on a motorcycle excitedly telling her friends: “My mom explained to me that if drones hit the house, it would all blow up!”
Her friends don’t have time to answer her, as from across the street there is a loud blow and an obscene exclamation. It was workers at a nearby construction site who dropped something large and heavy. But the girls are clearly frightened, and have stopped discussing the consequences of the strikes, just in case.
The road along the Duderhof Canal, which flows through the Krasnoselsky District, leads to the Gulf of Finland Embankment, where a new recreation area has been created. Children play on the playgrounds or swim, and adults sunbathe, talk or look intently into the distance.
Kronstadt is visible on the horizon. A plume of smoke still rose into the sky from the island, the last reminder of the morning’s impact.
An elderly couple wearing sports clothes, out for a jog, were suddenly thrown away. “What a horror,” says the gray-haired man, “something is burning in Kronstadt.” His companion doesn’t answer. After standing for a few more minutes, they took a deep breath and continued running.
According to the BBC’s Russian service, the warship Boykiy, which was being repaired at the pier, was damaged in Kronstadt. Previously, he accompanied the Shadow Fleet carriers.
On the sidelines of SPIEF, VTB President Andrei Kostin said that the President has already decided to sell military equipment, such as air defense systems, to commercial structures. Dmitry Peskov, commenting on the attacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on St. Petersburg, said: “In order to prevent such attacks from occurring, the Special Operations Bureau continues.”