Ukraine Drone Attack on St. Petersburg: Oil Terminal Hit

Ukraine launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight Oct. 17-18 in one of the largest aerial attacks of the war, setting fire to an oil terminal in St. Petersburg and hitting a data center run by Russia’s biggest social network, according to Russian officials and Ukrainian reports.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses “neutralised” 1,015 Ukrainian drones over 15 Russian regions, occupied Crimea and the Black Sea, Al Jazeera reported. ABC News described it as one of the largest attacks of the war and apparently the biggest St. Petersburg has seen.

St. Petersburg, Russia’s second city with 5.6 million residents, sits about 850 kilometers, or 530 miles, from the Ukrainian border, the Kyiv Independent reported.

St. Petersburg: an oil terminal on fire

The main target was the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, one of Russia’s largest fuel storage and export hubs, which handles about 12.5 million tonnes a year, according to the Kyiv Independent. The Ruchyi oil depot and industrial warehouses in the Kolpinsky district were also hit.

“Emergency services continue to work on extinguishing fires at the St. Petersburg oil terminal,” Gov. Alexander Beglov said, according to ABC News.

Beglov said one person was killed and five were injured, and that 12 apartment buildings and two houses were damaged. Russian state media later cited the Leningrad region’s health committee as saying 10 people were injured, the Kyiv Independent reported.

The attack began at about 2:50 a.m. local time, the Kyiv Independent reported.

Leningrad region: a data center and the power grid

Outside the city, drones struck a data center belonging to VK, the company behind Russia’s largest social network, in the Leningrad region. Ukraine’s state news agency Ukrinform, citing earlier published data, said the site holds more than 20,000 servers in 640 racks. VK said its services kept running, though users reported disruptions.

A logistics center belonging to the online retailer Ozon caught fire. “We evacuated all employees, and no one was injured,” the company said, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Two power substations in Yanino were hit, leaving about 20,000 people without electricity on Sunday morning, regional Gov. Alexander Drozdenko said, according to ABC News.

Video circulating online appeared to show a drone hitting a large bridge, ABC News reported. That strike has not been confirmed.

The weapon: Fire Point’s FP-1

Ukrinform said Ukraine’s Defense Forces used FP-1 long-range attack drones made by the Ukrainian company Fire Point. “Fires broke out at the oil terminal and the oil depot, while serious damage to the data center has also been reported,” Fire Point said on Telegram, according to Ukrinform.

The Kyiv Independent said it could not independently verify the targets or the extent of the damage.

This was not the first time Ukraine reached St. Petersburg. The same oil terminal was hit on July 4, the Kyiv Independent reported. In June, Fire Point claimed about 20 hits around the city and the naval base at Kronstadt. Janes said it had seen no evidence of any vessel other than the Project 20380 corvette Boikiy, in dry dock at Kronstadt, being hit.

Moscow: “the course of events”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the attacks cannot change “the course of events,” the Kyiv Independent reported.

Russia hit back the same night. In Kyiv, one woman was killed, a metro station was damaged and a 25-story building was hit, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. One person was killed in Zaporizhzhia and two in the Volyn region, where 12 were injured, Al Jazeera reported.

The day before, Ukraine’s Air Force said it shot down 289 of 332 Russian drones, and Russian strikes over 24 hours had killed seven people and injured about 90, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Kyiv: the energy war

The strike on Russian fuel came as both sides target each other’s energy systems. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia struck Ukraine’s energy, oil and gas facilities 76 times in a week to “cause a blackout,” using “almost 2,700 attack drones, 1,700 aerial bombs, and 66 missiles,” Al Jazeera reported. “Tens of thousands of families remain without power,” he said, according to ABC News.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” on Oct. 11 without giving terms. Ukraine paused strikes on Russian energy for several days while Russian attacks on Ukrainian power plants continued, Al Jazeera reported. Zelenskyy said he would agree to another pause only if Ukraine received more Patriot interceptors, and he told the Financial Times he was “done” with the energy ceasefire, Al Jazeera reported.

Washington: a widening rift

The attack deepens a public split with the White House. Trump said on Oct. 15 that he finds Zelenskyy “more difficult to deal with than Putin,” and called Ukraine’s refinery strikes “a disgrace” that were “making the world oil price higher,” Al Jazeera reported. After the weekend attack, Trump said Zelenskyy “doesn’t want to end this war” and that he did not want to “foolishly” drive Moscow “away from the bargaining table.”

On Oct. 16, Trump waived a sweeping new sanctions package passed by Congress, ABC News reported. Zelenskyy told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that U.S. intelligence sharing on Russian ballistic missiles had resumed after a pause of about three days. “Now it works,” he said, according to the Kyiv Independent.

What we still don’t know

How badly the oil terminal and the VK data center were damaged, and how long repairs will take
Whether a bridge was hit
The final injury count, which Russian officials gave as five and then 10
How many of the 1,015 drones reached their targets

Zelenskyy said he hoped talks with U.S. officials could take place around Oct. 20-21, the Kyiv Independent reported.

Sources

Photo: Krzysztof Poplawski via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). The image shows an FP-1 on display at a defense show, not the drones used in the attack.