Vladimir Putin’s showcase economic forum has got off to a rocky start after Ukraine bombed the Russian president’s hometown just as the event was getting underway.
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum—an annual gathering known as Putin’s version of Davos—opened Wednesday in the city as Ukrainian drones struck key infrastructure nearby, including the St. Petersburg oil terminal, one of the largest oil transshipment hubs in northwestern Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the assault hit “key targets” as part of a wider wave of “long-range strikes.”
Russia said it downed more than 350 Ukrainian drones overnight across its territory, with around 60 intercepted over the Leningrad region alone. St. Petersburg governor Aleksandr Beglov confirmed that three districts of the city were targeted, with several people wounded and infrastructure damaged. Airspace around St. Petersburg’s international airport was restricted Wednesday morning, causing delays to roughly two dozen flights.
The strikes also hit Smolensk, a city in western Russia near the Belarus border, where Ukraine targeted what the regional governor described as “critical infrastructure facilities.”
Two firefighters were killed fighting a fire caused by falling drone debris, Governor Vasiliy Anokhin said, adding that two other firefighters and a civilian suffered minor injuries. Zelensky posted footage showing explosions, fires, and a thick plume of black smoke rising behind a high-rise building.
Other targets included military facilities at the Kronstadt naval base, an island port near St. Petersburg, and a site in Russia’s Tambov region that Ukraine said was involved in weapons production.
The assault came a day after Russia launched its own massive drone and missile barrage at Ukraine, striking Kyiv and other cities, killing at least 23 people and wounding 138 others.
All of which made for a complicated backdrop as Putin’s prestige event got underway.
The forum, launched in 1997 to attract foreign investment, bills itself this year as “one of the biggest and most important business events in the world” and “a leading international event,” with organizers boasting “about 20,000 people from more than 100 countries.”
Among those attending is an official U.S. delegation—the first to go to the forum at that level since around 2017-2018, according to Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov. The delegation is led by Rodney Cook, head of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, who is scheduled to appear on a “Russia-U.S.: Dialogue of Cultures” panel.
Among the U.S. citizens expected to attend the forum are right-wing social media personality Candace Owens; Steven Seagal, the former action star and martial artist who has long expressed admiration for Putin and received Russian citizenship in 2016; and right-wing influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, who posted a video showing themselves receiving a musical welcome upon arriving in Moscow ahead of the event. Seagal currently serves as a special representative for Russia’s Foreign Ministry on humanitarian relations with the United States and Japan.
Saudi Arabia is this year’s guest country, and China is sending its vice president.
High-level representatives from roughly 76 countries are expected to take part, Ushakov said.
