RUSSIA PERSPECTIVE

Moscow, July 6, 2026. Russia's Defense Ministry asserts it repelled a combined Ukrainian attack during the night of July 3-4: over 500 aerial targets downed, including ten Flamingo cruise missiles, nine HIMARS rockets in the Belgorod region, and 494 long-range drones. According to the military, this offensive aimed to "divert attention" from Ukrainians and their foreign backers following what Moscow describes as the "catastrophic failure" of Kyiv forces at Konstantinovka in the Donetsk People's Republic, and after a Russian strike on July 2 targeting military sites near Kyiv.

In parallel, a Ukrainian drone raid struck the Leningrad region and Saint Petersburg. Regional governor Alexander Beglov describes a "large-scale" attack on the six-million-person city, with impact on the local oil terminal, claiming no casualties. His counterpart, Alexander Drozdenko, notes drones hit the port of Vysotsk on the Baltic, a facility handling petroleum, grain, coal, and liquefied natural gas; 72 drones were downed over the region. On Telegram, Volodymyr Zelensky claims to have targeted "port oil infrastructure generating revenue for Russian war," as well as Kronstadt, a major naval base over 850 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Governors of Bryansk and annexed Crimea each report one death and multiple wounded; at Pskov, over thirty drones were intercepted, with limited damage and injuries at a Velikiye Luki factory.

For Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, these strikes on energy complexes and civilian infrastructure unrelated to the military-industrial sector represent "an absolutely obvious manifestation of terrorism" by the "Kyiv regime." The Defense Ministry warns these attempts "will not go unanswered." Moscow further accuses Baltic states, via its deputy foreign minister Mikhail Galuzhine, of having "provided their airspace" to Ukrainian drones, citing Latvia and its planned drone factory near the Russian border, termed a "provocation."