Ukraine shouts at Putin whilst opening SPIEF, from 620 miles away…..here is an extract from Phillips P OBrien’s Substack:

……………. what made SPIEF really memorable this year was how the Ukrainians twice reached out while Putin was vulnerable. First, a few hours before the opening ceremony, the Ukrainians launched a large, well coordinated UAV assault on at least two major targets in the immediate area of St Petersburg. Most obviously for SPIEF delegates, Ukrainian long range systems traveling over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the Ukrainian border, accurately hit the St Petersburg Oil Terminal—one of Russia’s largest oil storage and trans-shipment facilities on the Baltic Sea coast.

This meant that the forum was opened in the shadow of an enormous pillar of black smoke, courtesy of the Ukrainians (see picture above).

That was not all. The Ukrainians also attacked a number of naval targets in the St Petersburg area. These included a major logistics facility at Kronstadt, responsible for ammunition production and storage. Also at Kronstadt the Ukrainians hit a Russian Baltic Fleet Corvette in drydock—showing the kind of accuracy and hitting power that they lacked before this year.

The historians amongst you will also understand the importance of Kronstadt to a regime that likes to fashion itself as a reborn USSR. It is not just strategically important for the present Russian navy as one of its few vital facilities on the Baltic, it is historically resonant.

The meaning of the attacks was obvious. The Ukrainians were saying to Putin (and the rest of the world) that you cannot protect major facilities of strategic importance in Russia’s second city and that you certainly cannot protect public events.

To make sure that these attacks received the greatest possible coverage, President Zelensky personally highlighted the power of both strikes.