A drone threat has been announced south of St. Petersburg shortly after US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, arrived in the city for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine conflict. The warning comes just days after a massive Ukrainian drone barrage on the city and outskirts killed one person and injured 15 others.
Witkoff arrived at Pulkovo Airport on Wednesday morning. His motorcade headed for Constantine Palace, around 20 km southeast of St. Petersburg.
Shortly after arriving, Leningrad Region Governor Alexander Drozdenko announced a UAV threat in the airspace over Luga District, around 125 km south of the venue for the talks. The governor warned that mobile internet speeds could be reduced but did not specify the number, exact location, and direction of the drones, and did not report any interceptions.
Russia’s air regulator also imposed temporary airspace restrictions around Pulkovo Airport, citing flight safety. The facility earlier received Witkoff’s aircraft from Oslo, where he met with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and European officials on Tuesday.
The alert follows Sunday’s unprecedented Ukrainian drone attack on St. Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad Region. According to the Russian authorities, the strikes killed one person and injured 15, damaged residential buildings, and sparked fires at an oil terminal, oil depot, and industrial facilities.
Commenting on the raid at the time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described it as “final manifestations of agony” of Ukraine. “The Kiev regime is fighting back [but] it cannot alter the course of history.”
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said the Putin-Witkoff talks will center on the Ukraine conflict. This comes after the Oslo talks where the US, Ukraine, and Kiev’s Western backers discussed security guarantees, a postwar economic plan, and a broader European security architecture, according to Reuters.