First War Death Reported in Putin's Hometown After Kyiv's Record Drone Assault

St. Petersburg, the hometown of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, reported on Sunday its first civilian death during an overnight drone attack more than four years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russian independent outlet Astra said on Tuesday that the man was a 36-year-old taxi driver who was killed when a downed Ukrainian drone fell on his car, calling it “the first known casualty of strikes on the city during Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.”

Citing local investigative outlet Fontanka, Astra identified the man’s name as Yuri and said he was killed while driving on the city’s Obukhovskoy Oborony Avenue.

“They called me and told me my husband was dead. They gave me a phone number I could call to find out the details and then go to the Investigative Committee to give a statement,” the widow was quoted as saying by Fontanka.

“They said he’d been identified – he had documents and a phone with him,” she added.

The death came as Ukraine unleashed its largest drone assault on the city and the surrounding Leningrad region to date.

On Sunday, Russian authorities said air defenses shot down 145 drones over the region – the largest number to date, with local fuel transshipment infrastructure, a data center, a logistics warehouse, and a highway bridge targeted in the attack.

Russian media has downplayed the attack, with updates on the attack lasting less than a minute, as opposed to major channels’ extensive coverage of the protests in France, an investigation by BBC Russia found.

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Poland Scrambles Aircraft Twice Amid Russian Attacks on Ukraine

Residents in Poland’s Lublin and Subcarpathian regions received alerts as Russian attacks continued across Ukraine.

The last major attack on the city took place in early June, during Russia’s flagship St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), when Kyiv reported attacks on nearby fuel facilities, naval bases, and ammunition warehouses; The city’s military offices subsequently published recruitment flyers for mobile air defense groups following the attacks on nearby refineries.

In Ukraine, a recent Kyiv Post analysis estimates that at least six civilians were killed and 21 were injured by Russian missiles in the past week following reports of suspended US intelligence support for Kyiv.

The figure excludes those resulting from drones. On Tuesday morning, a Russian drone attack on the Kyiv-Odesa highway, at an intersection immediately south of the capital, killed three and wounded four after one hit near the highway.

Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky, also came under attack overnight with two deaths reported, in addition to eight injured. A shopping mall in the city was also targeted in August by two consecutive drones and led to over a dozen deaths, according to a UN report.

In early October, the UN verified 15,280 civilian casualties in Ukraine during the first eight months of 2026 as a result of Russian attacks, representing a 55 percent increase compared to the corresponding period in 2025.

During the period, Russian guided bomb attacks killed or wounded nearly 2,500 civilians, marking a 62 percent surge over the same period in 2025, according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.