Residents of St Petersburg were told not to leave their homes after a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack targeted Russia’s second-largest city on Saturday (June 6, 2026) morning, underscoring Kyiv’s growing ability to hit deep inside Russia. The attack came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin refused an offer to meet his Ukrainian counterpart.

St Petersburg Gov. Alexander Beglov advised the residents not to go outside and warned of possible disruptions to mobile internet service, while regional Gov. Alexander Drozdenko said 141 drones were shot down over the surrounding Leningrad region. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 376 Ukrainian drones. “Last night, our drones covered a distance of about 1,000 kilometres to the St Petersburg region, to the enemy navy’s arsenals and a base in Kronstadt,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X.

Although no casualties were immediately reported, the renewed attack on St Petersburg is the latest embarrassing blow to Mr. Putin’s efforts to cast the conflict as a distant event that doesn’t affect Russian daily life. A Ukrainian drone strike set ablaze an oil terminal in the city and hit a nearby naval base on Wednesday (June 3, 2026), hours before the opening of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Mr. Putin’s annual showcase for investment.

Speaking at the forum, Mr. Putin said on Thursday (June 4, 2026) that Russia will strengthen its air defences to counter recent Ukrainian drone attacks, which have reached deep inside his country and cast a cloud over the event in his hometown of St Petersburg.

Mr. Putin on Friday (June 5, 2026) rejected a proposal by Mr. Zelenskyy for a face-to-face meeting on the 4-year-old conflict, saying he sees “no point” in it. Thursday’s (June 4, 2026) letter, the first public message Mr. Zelenskyy has written directly to Mr. Putin since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, was a sweeping critique of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power, as well as some taunts about his age.

Responding to Mr. Putin’s dismissal of the proposed meeting, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Saturday (June 6, 2026) that things would “only get worse for Russia.” “Failures will get more humiliating,” he wrote on X, warning that there are “no safe places in Russia that can be exempt” from Ukrainian long-range attacks, and that the intensity of attacks “will continue to grow.” With the front line barely moving as swarms of drones hinder advances, both sides have sought an edge by launching long-range strikes.

In Ukraine, one person was killed and three wounded overnight into Saturday (June 6, 2026) in the Dnipropetrovsk region, as Russian forces struck three districts nearly 30 times with drones and artillery, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said. In Zaporizhzhia, seven people sought medical care after a Russian drone strike started a fire at a parking lot, according to regional head Ivan Fedorov.

Russia targeted Ukraine overnight with 272 strike drones, and air defences shot down 249 of them, the Ukrainian air force said on Saturday (June 6, 2026).

A Ukrainian strike on the Russia-held part of Ukraine’s Kherson region killed four people, the Moscow-installed governor said Tuesday, as Kyiv stepped up retaliatory strikes against Russia.

Moscow said it had intercepted 209 drones overnight and in the morning from Ukraine’s second large barrage in a row.

Four civilians were killed in a “targeted drone attack on civilian vehicles” on a highway, Vladimir Saldo, governor of the Russian-occupied part of Kherson region, wrote on Telegram.

He added another person was wounded in a separate Ukrainian strike in the region.

Kyiv did not immediately comment but denies targeting civilians in Russian-occupied areas of the country.

Ukraine’s local authorities meanwhile accused Russia of killing a man in the city of Kherson, which is controlled by Kyiv.

“A 65-year-old resident of Kherson came under enemy fire. He sustained fatal injuries,” the Kherson region governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on Telegram on Tuesday.

Kyiv is ramping up strikes on Russia’s energy and oil infrastructure, in what it sees as a legitimate response to Moscow’s daily attacks on Ukrainian cities, which have at times left millions without heating and power.

Ukraine said Russia had launched 154 drones and missiles overnight Monday-Tuesday, around half of which were intercepted.

An unmanned aircraft hit railway and energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s Poltava and Sumy regions, leaving more than 1,000 people without electricity.

On Monday, Ukraine launched 251 drones towards Russia, and two people died in a rocket strike on the city of Belgorod around 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

“One thousand people in four settlements remain without electricity,” according to Belgorod’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, adding that repair works were ongoing after the barrage.

The Russian army controls around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including the Crimean peninsula annexed in 2014, and has been grinding forward on the battlefield, with both militaries suffering immense losses.

A Ukrainian drone attack sparked a short-lived fire at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, damaged an auxiliary transformer and led to reduction in the operating capacity at one of the plant’s units, the plant’s press service reported early on Sunday (August 24, 2025).

“A combat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) belonging to the Armed Forces of Ukraine was shot down by air defence systems near the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant,” the press service said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

“Upon impact, the drone detonated, resulting in damage to an auxiliary transformer.”

The press service added that there were no injuries, but as a result of the denotation, unit three of the plant was reduced to 50% capacity. The destroyed drone also sparked a fire that has since been extinguished, the press service said.

Radiation levels at the site and in the surrounding area have not exceeded normal limits, the press service added.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Kyiv has said its strikes inside Russia are in response to Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine and are aimed at destroying infrastructure deemed crucial to Moscow’s overall military efforts.

Reuters could not independently verify the report. It was not immediately clear at what part of the plant the fire occurred.

Earlier, Russia’s federal free-to-air television network REN TV reported, citing the plant’s press service, that the transformer is not a part of the nuclear section of the plant.