EditUkrainian drones target St. Petersburg as Putin attends scaled-down Navy Day
The attack highlights Ukraine's increasingly bold tactics to strike deep into Russian territory
Ukrainian drones targeted St. Petersburg on Sunday (27 July), Russian authorities said, forcing the airport to close for five hours as Vladimir Putin marked Russia’s Navy Day in the city, despite the earlier cancellation of its naval parade due to security concerns.
The attack highlights Ukraine’s increasingly bold tactics to strike deep into Russian territory, aiming to make ordinary Russians aware that the war – officially termed a “special military operation” by the Kremlin – can reach their homeland, countering Putin’s efforts to downplay the conflict and shield domestic audiences from its realities.
St. Petersburg usually holds a large-scale, televised navy parade on Navy Day, which features a flotilla of warships and military vessels sailing down the Neva River and is attended by Putin. Last year, Russia suspected a Ukrainian plan to attack the city’s parade, according to state television. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Sunday that this year’s parade had been cancelled for security reasons, following first reports of its cancellation in early July.
The cancellation comes against the backdrop of Ukraine’s remarkable military successes against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, despite Kyiv lacking a traditional navy. Using innovative sea drones and missile strikes, Ukraine has inflicted severe damage, destroying approximately 33% of the fleet’s combat ships – around 24 vessels – since 2022, including high-profile sinkings and attacks in 2024-2025 that forced Russia to relocate much of its naval assets to safer ports. Recent operations have included drone strikes on occupied offshore gas rigs and the use of sea drones equipped with AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles to down Russian helicopters, demonstrating how low-cost, unmanned systems have achieved strategic outcomes and reshaped naval warfare.
Putin arrived at the city’s historic naval headquarters on Sunday by patrol speed boat, from where he followed drills involving more than 150 vessels and 15,000 military personnel in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans and the Baltic and Caspian Seas.
“Today we are marking this holiday in a working setting, we are inspecting the combat readiness of the fleet,” Putin said in a video address.
The Russian Defence Ministry said air defence units downed a total of 291 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones on Sunday, below a record 524 drones downed in attacks on 7 May, ahead of Russia’s Victory Day parade on 9 May. Alexander Drozdenko, governor of the Leningrad region surrounding St. Petersburg, said that over ten drones were downed over the area, and falling debris injured a woman. At 0840 GMT on Sunday, Drozdenko said that the attack was repelled.
St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport was closed during the attack, with 57 flights delayed and 22 diverted to other airports, according to a statement. Pulkovo resumed operations later on Sunday. Russian blogger Alexander Yunashev, part of an official group of reporters travelling with Peskov, said Peskov had told him their flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg had been delayed by the drone attack for 2 hours on Sunday.
With Reuters, edited by g.g.
Caption: Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) visits the frigate ‘Admiral Grigorovich’ during Navy Day celebrations in St. Petersburg, Russia, 27 July 2025. EPA/ALEXANDER KAZAKOV / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN POOL KREMLIN POOL
Updated: July 28, 2025 - 05:43
