'Massive' drone attack kills one, hits oil sites
City authorities said the attack also disrupted flights at Saint Petersburg's main airport.
SMOKE rises above the city following an air attack on the oil terminal in Saint Petersburg on 18 October 2026, amid the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Photograph courtesy of STRINGER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
MOSCOW, Russia |(AFP) — A "massive" Ukrainian drone attack overnight killed one person, wounded five others and set two oil refineries ablaze in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, its governor said Sunday.
"One person was killed and five others hurt and hospitalized following a massive attack carried out by Ukrainian Nazi military drones," governor Alexandre Beglov said.
He added firefighters were battling blazes at the Saint Petersburg oil terminal site, also hit in June, the Ruchi oil depot and industrial warehouses in the Kolpino district south of the city.
Beglov added several residential buildings had been hit, as well as two houses.
"Air defense systems are in operation," he wrote on Telegram.
City authorities said the attack also disrupted flights at Saint Petersburg's main airport, one of the country's busiest, which was restricting operations "for safety reasons," Beglov said.
The strikes came after Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky said this week Kyiv would resume hitting Russian refineries, after an "energy ceasefire" announced by United States President Donald Trump failed to materialize.
Zelensky insisted he was standing up for his war-torn country in the face of unrelenting Russian attacks, including on energy infrastructure, as support from the US slumped.
The governor of the Leningrad region surrounding Saint Petersburg, Alexander Drozdenko, said 145 drones had been shot down and said around 20,000 people were without electricity following the drone raid.
"A large-scale UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) attack continues to be repelled," Drozdenko wrote on Telegram.
Saint Petersburg and the surrounding region are home to major oil infrastructure. Ukraine has specifically targeted the sector over recent months in retaliation for Russian bombings.
TASS news agency said the attack was the largest on the region since the start of the war in February 2022. A 6 June attack saw 144 drones shot down, according to officials.
Russia's defense ministry said overall 1,015 Ukrainian drones were neutralized Saturday night in around 15 regions in Russia's south and west, including the capital, Moscow.
The Russian VK social network said the attack targeted one of its data centers in the region but that the site was working as normal.
Trump, who has repeatedly criticized Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries and oil depots, signed an executive order on Friday to waive sanctions and tariffs targeting Moscow's energy revenues.
The move, which came despite Russia increasing strikes on Ukraine in the fifth year of its war, drew criticism in both Europe and the US.