Ukraine war updates: Drone strikes hit St. Petersburg; Russia rejects U.S. arms control talks

Ukraine targeted the Russian city of St. Petersburg with a drone attack overnight, Ukraine’s minister of strategic industries, Oleksandr Kamyshin, told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, according to Interfax news agency.

Russia claimed on Thursday that Ukraine had attacked several areas of the country with drones, including the northwestern Leningrad region for the first time.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday night urged allied countries to ensure that sanctions against Russia are fully enforced.

“The terrorist state manufactures weapons, including missiles. There are dozens of critical components in each of them that were manufactured abroad, many of which were produced by companies from the free world,” he said in a post on X.

“Blocking sanctions evasion loopholes means literally blocking terror. I am grateful to all of our partners who understand this, as well as everyone around the world who supports our relevant efforts.”

Moscow on Thursday rejected U.S.-Russian arms control negotiations owing to U.S. support for Ukraine, which Washington suggested cast doubt on the potential for a new treaty limiting the two adversaries’ strategic nuclear arsenals.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference that the U.S. had proposed separating the issues of Ukraine and the “strategic stability” conversation around arms control, but that Russia considered the West’s backing of Ukraine as a “hybrid war” against Moscow, according to Reuters.