Ukraine Damages Russian Frigate in Drydock on Kronstadt

Ukraine's strike on St. Petersburg on Wednesday morning damaged a tank farm in the main harbor, a dramatic demonstration of its drone forces' reach and an inconvenience for the city's marquee economic conference. In addition to the attention-grabbing attack near the city's center, Ukrainian drones also targeted a dockyard on the island of Kronstadt, the historical cradle of the Russian Navy, and damaged a Russian corfvette undergoing repairs.

Ukraine Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert "Magyar" Brovdi shared a video of the multi-drone strike on Wednesday. According to Brovdi, USF drones hit the warship Boikyi, a well-known fixture of the Baltic Fleet's North Sea and English Channel escort system for the Russian "shadow fleet" and the "Syrian Express."

"[Boikyi] has a fascinating history of journeys and adventures along NATO's borders. It accompanied the shadow oil fleet – a real workhorse," Magyar said.

The corvette was hit during a yard period, a particularly vulnerable time for a warship, defense analysts noted. In drydock, hatches are often blocked open for work and flammable materials may be present (as seen during the devastating fire aboard USS Bonhomme Richard), and response access can be hampered by cables, scaffolding and equipment on board.

Footage obtained by merchant sailors in the Gulf of Finland suggests that at least some of the drones for the St. Petersburg strikes arrived over water, from the west.

Sailors captured footage of a Ukrainian FP-1 drone flying just a few meters above the water in the Gulf of Finland during today's strike on St. Petersburg. pic.twitter.com/r3dhTvb6zA
— Special Kherson Cat ???????????? (@bayraktar_1love) June 3, 2026

Magyar's video release of the Kronstadt mission shows that the first drone approached off the corvette's port quarter and targeted the area of the mainmast, just aft of the wheelhouse. Footage recorded by a second inbound drone showed the Boikyi's upper deck level ablaze and burning vigorously. It is unclear from the footage if the second drone made it to its target.

Vantor collected new imagery showing the aftermath of the Ukrainian drone attacks on an oil terminal in St. Petersburg, Russia as well as the damaged Steregushchy-class corvette Boikiy in a naval dry dock at Kronstadt, Russia.

In Kronstadt, you can see fire crews working to… pic.twitter.com/1JG7n1KQ7g
— George Barros (@georgewbarros) June 3, 2026

KRONSTADT (St. Petersburg), June 3.
Birds of the @1usc_army, @usf_army hunted down and set ablaze the corvette Boikiy, a guided missile weapons carrier.

06:35, 03.06.26. Veleshchynskyi Dry Dock, Kronstadt (St. Petersburg) – the cradle of the russian Navy.

Tired after its… pic.twitter.com/2HjrlyVKdc
— 414 Magyar's Birds (@414magyarbirds) June 3, 2026

The area hit appears to align with the location of Boikyi's air and surface search radar, a phased-array radar derived from Russia's Pantsir air defense system. It is among the warship's most important electronic systems, and replacement components are in high demand for ground-based air defense.

2013-built Boikyi is one of nine operational Steregushchy-class corvettes, mainstays of the Baltic Fleet's patrol operations. She is the only vessel of the class to suffer damage in the war to date. Three more vessels of the class are under construction,

In announcing the strike, Magyar drew a parallel between Wednesday's attack and Soviet naval history: the Kronstadt sailor's uprising of 1921, an early (if unsuccessful) protest against Communist rule. Russian sailors on Kronstadt rebelled against their Bolshevik officers and demanded free elections and freedom of speech - for Magyar, a precedent for Ukraine's resistance to Russian rule.

"Metaphorical, perhaps. Symbolic, certainly – a slap across the face of a dictatorship," he wrote.