Ukrainian drones damaged the St. Petersburg oil terminal and warships docked at the city’s Kronstadt naval base on Wednesday. The attacks came just as international delegates were arriving for Russia’s flagship annual economic gathering, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Black smoke rose above the city as oil facilities blazed. These strikes on Vladimir Putin’s home city are extremely embarrassing for the Russian president.
Russia can expect more of the same. Much more.
Indeed, Ukraine is now able to launch hundreds of drones against targets deep inside Russia multiple times a week (St. Petersburg is nearly 700 miles from Ukraine’s border). Facing these escalating attacks on its energy infrastructure, military airfields, ammunition depots, and other targets, Russia has relocated bombers further away from Ukraine’s reach, has repositioned warships, and is concentrating air defense resources around Moscow. And, as I noted on Tuesday, Ukraine has also seized the battlefield initiative on the ground.
Putin has a problem.
After all, Russia has until now largely insulated its people from the realities of the war. The physical reality of the conflict has remained distant for most Russian civilians. No longer. Now the St. Petersburg skies have been bleached black on a day when Russia intended to showcase its strength to an increasingly skeptical world.
Moscow claims that 20,000 guests from 130 countries are attending the economic forum this week. This, it claims, is proof that Russia remains globally connected and respected. But far from respected international luminaries, the Western celebrities in attendance centered on Candace Owens, Steven Seagal (now a Russian citizen and active Foreign Ministry representative), and both Andrew and Tristan Tate. Yes, the same Tate brothers facing allegations of trafficking, rape, and organized crime in Romania. Putin thinks these guests will make Russia appear strong.
Of course, the narrative that Russia represents strength, power, and an alternative international order looks considerably weaker when Ukrainian drones are wreaking havoc from above.
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With little battlefield success to point to, Russia is now pounding Ukrainian cities with its heaviest weapons, aiming to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses, discourage Western support for Kyiv, and degrade Ukrainian resolve. Instead, what Ukraine is doing to Russia shows only that the West needs to stand firm at Ukraine’s back. The United States and other Western partners should provide the air defense systems that Ukraine needs to defend against Russia’s attacks.
Receiving that support, Kyiv can keep pushing Moscow toward the inevitability of a Russian concessionary negotiating table.