Putin’s home city hit by drone after he was called a ‘killer’ at Navalny funeral

Vladimir Putin’s home city was targeted in a kamikaze drone attack this morning, hours after the tyrant was branded a ‘killer’ by mourners at Alexei Navalny’s funeral.

Video footage shows the moment an apartment block was hit in the suspected Ukrainian attack which triggered a huge fire ball.

The drone is thought to have been aimed at a nearby oil depot.

At least 15 apartments were damaged on all five floors of the building on Piskarevsky Avenue in St. Petersburg. 

One resident said: ‘Half the house was blown away.’

Another, who gave her name only as Elena, said: ‘I first heard a whistle, because I had just opened the window, then a pop, a blaze and a full apartment of smoke, the window flew out.’

Russian emergency servicemen and investigators work near a damaged multi-storey residential building following an alleged drone attack in Saint Petersburg (Picture: EPA)

Russia’s state news agency says a drone crashed into an apartment building (Picture: AP)

One hundred people were evacuated from the blitzed block, but no casualties were reported.

It was the first attack on St Petersburg in more than a month. 

St Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov said earlier that two buildings were damaged and residents had been evacuated after what he called an ‘incident’ with no casualties.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has not commented.

Ukraine’s defence ministry said it ‘did not possess information about the indicated situation’.

There were unconfirmed reports of a second drone on a night when Russia also hit Odesa, killing two and wounding seven, with six people missing. 

The attacks came the day after 128 people in 19 Russian cities were detained as they marked the funeral Navalny, who was suspected to have been murdered in his Arctic jail on Putin’s orders. 

Most detainees were freed later. 

Mourners in Moscow defied the authorities by chanting demands for Russia without Putin and an end to the war in Ukraine. 

The suspected target in St Petersburg was the Ruchyi oil depot, around half a mile away.

Ukraine has previously hit oil depots in the city and Leningrad region, leading to Russia temporarily halting gasoline exports.

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