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Putin Scrambles to Hide Humiliating Reality

Kremlin broadcasters largely ignored Kyiv’s largest strike in a city close to the strongman’s heart.

Russian state television buried news of Ukraine’s largest drone attack of the war on St. Petersburg, choosing instead to fill airwaves with coverage of protests in France.

A review by BBC’s Russian Service of 20 news broadcasts on Rossiya 1, Channel One, and NTV across Sunday and Monday morning uncovered zero dedicated reports on the massive barrage targeting Vladimir Putin’s hometown.

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Instead, news anchors offered rushed updates lasting less than a minute, completely scrubbing any mention of the strikes from their morning broadcasts.

The media blackout came despite catastrophic damage on the ground. The Sunday strike ignited fires at the St. Petersburg oil terminal, an oil depot, and a logistics center for Ozon, Russia’s second largest online retailer, while damaging a data center for social media giant VK and knocking out power lines.

Leningrad Oblast Governor Alexander Drozdenko confirmed Russia’s air defenses had shot down 145 drones over the region—a war high. Local authorities reported one person killed, 15 injured, and damage to residential buildings, cars, and the lifting section of the Finland Railway Bridge.

It was the first civilian death in Putin’s hometown since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Yet Rossiya 1’s Vesti skipped the attack entirely during its morning and afternoon broadcasts on Sunday, waiting until 5 p.m. to frame the strikes purely as grounds for retaliation.

A subsequent 30-second Vesti Nedeli segment mentioned the single fatality while airing unsourced allegations that Baltic states aided the assault. Dedicated coverage was relegated almost entirely to regional programming.

By contrast, Kremlin anchors obsessively spotlighted French civil unrest.

State networks aired repeated reports claiming Paris had been “on fire for almost a month,” running a nearly seven-minute segment titled “France in Flames”—longer than the combined coverage of the St. Petersburg attack across all three primary channels.

Channel One gave the drone attack under a minute while lavishing nearly 10 minutes minutes on France, and NTV’s weekly roundup gave St. Petersburg just 30 seconds compared to seven and a half minutes on Paris.

The Kremlin’s propaganda play coincided with an eyebrow-raising White House tirade on Monday, when President Donald Trump blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, suggesting he was to blame for the bloodshed and defending easing sanctions on Russia.

“Zelensky doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Trump told reporters after Zelensky warned the U.S. was on “the wrong side of history” by cozying up to Vladimir Putin.

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“He should have had this war settled a long time ago. If he would have listened to me, he would have made a much better deal a long time ago, and he’d have a million people living from his side.”

Trump openly advocated benching Ukraine’s leader from peace negotiations entirely. “And to be honest, I think it’s time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine because what’s happened? … A tremendous number of people are dead. They’re losing their male population.”

The 80-year-old president complained that the U.S. received “nothing” in return for aiding Kyiv, signaling he was considering meeting Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping without Zelensky present.

The broadside follows Zelensky’s appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he admitted feeling “betrayed” by Washington’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel.

“This is not the right side of history,” Zelensky warned.

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Leigh KimminsReporter

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