Home › Security › What Ukraine's Saint Petersburg strike claim signalled
What Ukraine's Saint Petersburg strike claim signalled
Summary
A look back at the days around 19 January 2024, when Kyiv and Moscow gave conflicting accounts of an attack deep inside Russia.
How far could the war reach into Russian territory by 19 January 2024? The reports of the preceding days pointed to a conflict that was widening in both directions, with competing claims about what had actually been hit.
On 18 January 2024, Ukraine said it had struck an oil terminal in Saint Petersburg using a domestically produced long-range drone. Kyiv presented the attack as part of a new campaign against strategic targets inside Russian territory. Russia, however, reported that the attack had failed. The two accounts were not reconciled in the reporting from that day.
Aircraft claim over the Sea of Azov
A few days earlier, on 15 January 2024, Ukraine claimed it had shot down two Russian military aircraft over the Sea of Azov: a Beriev A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft and an Ilyushin Il-22 airborne control centre. The claim was reported as part of the southern Ukraine campaign.
Civilians under fire in Kharkiv
The human cost of the war continued alongside these claims. On 16 January 2024, a Russian missile strike on a residential area of Kharkiv injured seventeen people.
Taken together, the reports from 15 to 18 January 2024 showed Ukraine asserting longer-range reach against Russian targets, Russia disputing at least one of those claims, and Russian missiles still hitting residential districts in Ukraine's second city.
