The Russian-Ukrainian war spirals into a bloody spiral of attacks and reprisals in the total absence of negotiations, at least those in the open. Kiev claimed sensational drone attacks on Russian territory, particularly in St. Petersburg, coinciding with the opening of the International Economic Forum (Spief), considered a “Russian Davos”, with large foreign participation. But Moscow accuses Ukrainian forces of killing at least 12 civilians in other attacks, including 8 on a passenger bus that was traveling from the capital to occupied Crimea. And the “punishment” for the guilty, the Kremlin warned, will be “inevitable”.
A column of black smoke rose early in the morning on the horizon of St. Petersburg, visible to guests – including Westerners – who began to arrive at the Forum, where President Vladimir Putin will also be present today and Friday. According to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, Kiev’s drones hit “important targets” in the Baltic metropolis, located 1,100 kilometers from the border: therefore drones of extraordinary range were used. In particular, an oil terminal and “purely military” targets in Kronstadt. According to other Ukrainian sources, a military corvette was hit at this historic naval base, located on Kotlin Island, in front of the city. Dozens of flights were delayed or canceled at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport, coinciding with the arrival of many forum participants. Also according to the Ukrainians, other drones hit a plant in Tambov, specialized in the production of control systems for aviation and missile technology.
“I believe that these are the right attacks, only a day ago there was a massive attack, we responded accordingly,” said Zelensky, recalling the heavy Russian bombings on the night between Monday and Tuesday with an overall toll, according to the Ukrainian authorities, of over 20 dead and 120 injured in Kiev and Dnipro. The Russians had said they attacked military targets in retaliation for a May 22 bombing of a student dormitory in the Luhansk region, which they controlled, in which 21 boys and girls were killed and 42 injured. Now the roles have been reversed: the Ukrainians claim to have struck only military targets in response to the attacks by Moscow’s forces, while the Russians accuse them of targeting civilians.
According to Russian authorities, a drone attack in the Donetsk region, also mostly occupied by Moscow’s forces, hit a passenger bus headed to Simferopol, Crimea, leaving 8 dead and 10 injured.
“Another crime by the Kiev regime,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “Those behind such crimes must be punished, and punishment, as the president said, should be inevitable,” he added. Therefore, Russia will continue its «systematic» reprisals. And the same “military special operation continues precisely to avoid such attacks”, added Putin’s spokesperson, using the official definition for the conflict.
Russian sources also reported the killing of two firefighters and the wounding of two of their colleagues in another Ukrainian drone attack in the Smolensk region. While in the part of the Zaporizhzhia region under the control of Moscow forces, the head of the pro-Russian administration said that two civilians died when the car they were traveling in was hit by an unmanned aerial vehicle of Kiev forces.
On the other front, Ukrainian local authorities reported five deaths in Russian bombing during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday and another three on Wednesday in areas close to the front.