The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, stated this Sunday that his American counterpart, Donald Trump, is pressuring kyiv to surrender to Russia. “I believe that measures have been taken to convince Ukraine to capitulate,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg in which he also confirmed that, if elections are held during the war, he will appear. Hours earlier, the Ukrainian armed forces had carried out a harsh bombardment early Sunday morning against the industrial fabric of the Russian region of Leningrad and Saint Petersburg.
The offensive is kyiv's response to a week plagued by Russian attacks on its territory while the United States ignored President Zelensky, who warned that they would not sit idly by. Their drones have reached the oil terminal in Russia's second largest city, a vKontakte (VK, a large social network) data center and a logistics center for the Ozon online sales market.
The attack last morning, which is part of a large wave of Ukrainian drones, has forced the Russian Ministry of Defense to shoot down 1,015 unmanned devices in its space between eight in the afternoon on Saturday and eight in the morning on Sunday.
At least one person has died and five more were injured during the bombings, as announced by the governor of Saint Petersburg, Alexander Beglov. The head of the Baltic region, Alexander Drozdenko, has indicated that his anti-aircraft systems hit 144 drones in his territory.
The attack on Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg is a message not only to the Russian president, but also to Trump. Zelensky also tries to emphasize that, despite kyiv's human, arms and economic inferiority, Moscow also needs to negotiate to move towards the end of the conflict.
“Practically uninterrupted communication”
Zelensky stated this Sunday that he has spoken with US peace envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Reuters reports. "Peace only comes through strength and cooperation based on trust," Zelensky wrote on the social network
Previously, Zelensky had posted on his social networks: "The United States must understand that Russia is not taking any reciprocal measures in response to sanctions relief or agreements. On the contrary, they interpret each gesture as an opportunity to make money as proof that their bet on war is paying off and that they can continue the fight." That, Zelensky explained, is the real reason why Moscow maintains its offensive, and "not because Ukraine is legitimately defending itself." For this reason, he added, “it is Russia that must face pressure so that peace has a chance.”
The week ended with the Kremlin launching nearly 2,700 drones and 1,700 aerial bombs and 66 missiles, mostly ballistic. “The main targets of these attacks are energy facilities: the Russians are trying to cause a blackout,” Zelensky stressed.
In total, they have carried out 76 attacks against energy infrastructure, according to data provided by the Ukrainian president. Thousands of families continue to have problems accessing something as basic as electricity.
Zelensky wanted to emphasize that these 76 attacks have been committed since Trump decreed an energy truce on Saturday last week. kyiv accepted it and stopped its bombing of Russian refineries. But, from the beginning, Moscow did not endorse that agreement: what's more, the Kremlin announced that basic supplies for the Ukrainians will be a priority objective.
Putin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, repeated this Sunday the line maintained by the Kremlin for almost five years: Ukrainian actions "will not change the course of events" while Russian attacks "are producing results" and "are systematic and massive, and are designed to reduce the attacking potential of the kyiv regime." However, the hole caused by kyiv in Russian accounts has ballooned, and Moscow is putting pressure on Washington to make Ukraine give in.
Ukraine thus continues its campaign against the Russian oil industry, despite threats from US President Donald Trump. Hydrocarbons are one of the main sources of income that sustains the war unleashed by the Kremlin, while the North American leader desperately needs to lower the price of fuel to try to revive his popularity in the face of the mid-term elections in November. To this end, Trump has just vetoed the latest oil sanctions of his Congress against Russia.
The St. Petersburg terminal (the second largest Russian city) is one of the largest cargo facilities in the Baltic Sea with a capacity of 12.5 million tons per year. The fire shown in the videos taken by neighbors from different parts of the city confirmed that it had been hit. The Ukrainian military company Fire Point has publicized that the attack was carried out by FP-1 drones.
The Ukrainian army also reached the Ruchi oil depots during the early hours of the morning, where the bombs caused a fire.
The drone threat also forced the temporary closure of Pulkovo airport and some sections of the highway that circles Saint Petersburg. Dozens of flights were canceled or suffered delays in a black week for Russian commercial aviation due to the presence of Ukrainian unmanned aircraft.
VKontakte, a rival to Facebook and founded in 2006 by the creator of Telegram, Pável Dúrov, is today in the hands of businessmen close to the Kremlin. Its press department has confirmed that its servers were bombed and some users claim to have noticed interruptions on the platform, according to the Astra channel.
Ukraine's campaign against the Russian economy continues as President Vladimir Putin tries to show Trump that his forces maintain the initiative. However, its own nationalist channels deny the announcements of its high command.
The Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, declared in a meeting with Putin this Saturday that his army has captured Dobropilia and other settlements in the Donetsk region, in addition to taking more than 2,000 prisoners. The Russian leader affirmed that this supposed conquest was a “significant event” to open a gap in the region, one of the Kremlin's inalienable objectives in its almost five years of war.
“It doesn't even make sense to analyze all this,” denounced a well-known Russian military channel on Telegram, Voyenni Osvedomitel. This medium stressed that a video released by its Ministry of Defense had been created with artificial intelligence, and provided as an indication the unrealistic way of waving the Russian flag by a soldier. "They have sold Putin another Sviatogorsk, another Kupiansk! It's a shame!" claimed another ultranationalist channel linked to the former Wagner Group, Alex Parker Returns.
