AFP, Saint Petersburg

Ukraine fired hundreds of drones at Russia early yesterday, leaving one person dead and setting an oil depot ablaze on the final day of the country’s flagship economic forum in Saint Petersburg, officials said.

Many of the drones targeted Saint Petersburg itself, the second Ukrainian attack on the city in less than a week, although authorities reported no major damage.

Moscow and Kyiv have intensified drone strikes on each other in recent months as US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war, now in its fifth year, remain stalled over the conflict in the Middle East.

The strikes come a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky’s proposal for a meeting, drawing criticism from Zelensky, who accused him of “choosing war again”.

Russian air defences intercepted a total of 376 drones “over Belgorod, Bryansk, Kaluga, Kursk, Leningrad, Novgorod, Oryol, Pskov, Rostov, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tver, and Tula regions, Moscow region, Crimea Republic, Abkhazia Republic, and over the waters of the Azov and Black Seas,” the Russian defence ministry said.

Over 140 drones were shot down over the Leningrad region, which surrounds Saint Petersburg, governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said.