Putin Scrambles to Hide Humiliating Reality

Alexander Kazakov / via Reuters Russian state television buried news of Ukraine’s largest drone attack of the war on St.

Petersburg, choosing instead to fill airwaves with coverage of protests in France.

A review by BBC’s Russian Service of 20 news broadcasts on Rossiya 1, Channel One, and NTV across Sunday and Monday morning uncovered zero dedicated reports on the massive barrage targeting Vladimir Putin’s hometown.

Instead, news anchors offered rushed updates lasting less than a minute, completely scrubbing any mention of the strikes from their morning broadcasts.

The media blackout came despite catastrophic damage on the ground.

The Sunday strike ignited fires at the St.

Petersburg oil terminal, an oil depot, and a logistics center for Ozon, Russia’s second largest online retailer, while damaging a data center for social media giant VK and knocking out power lines.

Leningrad Oblast Governor Alexander Drozdenko confirmed Russia’s air defenses had shot down 145 drones over the region—a war high.

Local authorities reported one person killed, 15 injured, and damage to residential buildings, cars, and the lifting section of the Finland Railway Bridge.

It was the first civilian death in Putin’s hometown since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Yet Rossiya 1’s Vesti skipped the attack entirely during its morning and afternoon broadcasts on Sunday, waiting until 5 p.m. to frame the strikes purely as grounds for retaliation.

A subsequent 30-second Vesti Nedeli segment mentioned the single fatality while airing unsourced allegations that Baltic states aided the assault.

Dedicated coverage was relegated almost entirely to regional programming.

By contrast, Kremlin anchors obsessively spotlighted French civil unrest.