Russian warship among targets hit in a large-scale attack on St Petersburg
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ukraine says it hit a warship and an oil terminal in a large-scale drone attack on Russia's second city St Petersburg - just ahead of a major international economic forum being held there.
Also on the programme: A leading Venezuelan opposition activist tells us his country needs elections as soon as possible - but he doubts that interim president Delcy Rodriguez shares his view.
And scientists uncover living yeasts in the frozen body of a man who lived five thousand years ago -- and then manage to bake some bread with it.
(Photo: Heavy smoke billows after Ukrainian drones hit infrastructure, according to local authorities, in St Petersburg, Russia, 3rd June 2026. Credit: Reuters/Stringer)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.3 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.9 | We're coming to you live from London. |
| 0:14.7 | I'm James Menendez. |
| 0:16.0 | And later in the programme, we'll be hearing live from Kuwait, |
| 0:19.3 | where one person's being killed and many more injured |
| 0:21.8 | in an Iranian drone attack on the airport there. Also, we'll have a special report on the impact |
| 0:27.8 | of the operations of the British oil giant shell on local communities in Nigeria. And we'll be hearing |
| 0:33.9 | from a Venezuelan opposition leader who says the country needs to return to democracy with elections as soon as possible. |
| 0:41.6 | That's coming up in about 40 minutes. |
| 0:44.4 | But we are going to begin today in Russia's second biggest city, where this happened. |
| 1:02.7 | Well, that's the sound of Ukrainian drones hitting their targets and exploding just outside St Petersburg this morning. |
| 1:04.5 | Footage from the aftermath show several huge plumes of black smoke rising into a clear |
| 1:10.5 | blue sky and clearly visible from |
| 1:13.3 | the city centre. The timing is surely not a coincidence. From today, St Petersburg is playing host to |
| 1:18.9 | a major economic summit at which President Putin is due to speak. Our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, |
| 1:25.8 | is also there. Last night, the governor of Leningrad region, just outside the city of St. Petersburg, |
| 1:32.5 | issued an air raid warning. This morning, he announced that more than 50 drones had been |
| 1:37.8 | shot down. Local officials say that infrastructure was hit. They're not specifying what. |
| 1:43.9 | But we know that in recent weeks |
| 1:45.2 | Ukrainian drones have been targeting oil facilities, for example, in many parts of Russia. |
| 1:51.4 | And this comes just hours before the opening of the big set piece event here, the St. Petersburg |
... |
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