Russia cancels Navy Day parade for first time since 2017 as drones target St Petersburg

Ukrainian drone attacks forced Russia’s St Petersburg airport to close for almost five hours as the city cancelled its Navy Day parade due to security concerns.

President Vladimir Putin instead travelled to the city’s naval headquarters to receive an update on July Storm.

The four-day series of naval drills involved 150 vessels and 15,000 personnel across the Pacific and Arctic Oceans and the Baltic and Caspian Seas.

• Drone Chess: How UAVs have become the new pawns of the modern battlefield
• Pilot ejects as French-supplied Mirage jet crashes in Ukraine due to technical failure
• Putin announces navy will receive 30 more ships during Russia's annual Navy Day celebrations

In a video address, Mr Putin said: "Today we are marking this holiday in a working setting, we are inspecting the combat readiness of the fleet."

Britain’s Ministry of Defence said the cancellation of the Navy Day parade was unprecedented since its inception in 2017.

Parades in the Kaliningrad region and the far-eastern port of Vladivostok were also cancelled.

Earlier in the day, more than 10 drones were downed in the vicinity of St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport, according to a statement from the governor of the surrounding Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko.

One woman was injured by falling debris.

Pulkovo airport was closed during the attack, with 57 flights delayed and 22 others diverted to nearby airports.