The governor of the Russian city of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, reported that the city was subjected to a large-scale Ukrainian attack by military drones on Saturday morning, targeting an area that includes an oil station and a gas production facility in the Kirovsky neighborhood.
Air defenses repelled the attack and shot down 72 drones over the city, Begelov said, noting that the effects of the incident had been removed without any human casualties.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that his forces had carried out long-range attacks on cities and energy facilities deep inside Russia.
The outcome of Russian and Ukrainian objections
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the air defense systems on duty succeeded during the night in intercepting and destroying 389 Ukrainian drones.
The ministry explained in a statement that the defensive operations included many provinces, most notably Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Leningrad, Moscow, and Crimea, in addition to the Azov and Black Seas.
On the other hand, the Ukrainian Air Force announced that 69 Russian drones were shot down over several regions of the country last night, in conjunction with the sound of huge explosions in the center of the city of Dnipro in the south of the country.
Fall of Kostiantynivka and Lugansk
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Russian forces have fully taken control of the strategic city of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine, announcing the extension of full influence over the entire Lugansk region in the Donbas region.
Peskov explained that President Vladimir Putin visited an army command center to thank the soldiers, stressing that the control of the city is of great strategic importance as it is one of the last obstacles leading to the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
In the same context, Russian Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov noted that Russian forces are now only 9 kilometers away from the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.
Bloody Raids and a Day of Mourning in Kyiv
A number of people have been killed and wounded following a new wave of Russian attacks targeting areas of northern and southeastern Ukraine.
The governor of the Sumy region, Oleg Hrygorov, reported that a Russian airstrike targeted a high-rise apartment building and a shop in the city center, killing three people and wounding others, including children.
Artillery and air strikes also killed three people in Dnipropetrovsk and two in Zaporizhzhia, while the capital Kyiv observed a day of national mourning following an earlier missile attack that killed at least 30 people.
Ukraine's Quest for Technological Supremacy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that Kyiv is capable of producing enough high-tech weapons to exceed Russia's capabilities in the long term.
After meeting with defense industry leaders, Zelensky explained that the focus is on increasing the production of drones and missiles, directing the foreign and defense ministries to bring in additional funding from international partners, considering that transferring the consequences of the conflict to the daily lives of Russian society is a strategic way to force Moscow to make peace and undermine its financing options.
The crisis of training Russian soldiers in China
The German Foreign Ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador in Berlin, against the background of European intelligence reports that the Chinese military has secretly trained hundreds of Russian soldiers on its territory, and some of them have been deployed on the battlefronts in Ukraine. The German Foreign Ministry stressed that any military support to Russia represents a direct threat to European national security. Despite repeated Chinese denials and Beijing's assertion that the allegations were "unfounded," European officials noted that the drills were conducted with the personal approval of Russia's defense minister and with the participation of four generals from both sides last year.
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