Deadly overnight attack hits oil facilities in St Petersburg

At least one person was killed and at least five were injured in an overnight attack on St Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, that hit two of its oil facilities. It comes as Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth year and both sides strike each other's energy infrastructure with growing intensity.

Regional Governor Alexander Beglov said fires were being put out at the St Petersburg Oil Terminal and the Ruchyi oil depot. A logistics centre of online retailer Ozon and a data centre of social network VKontakte (VK) were also hit. Kyiv has not yet commented on the strikes.

Other damage

The governor said 12 apartment buildings and two homes were damaged, and Pulkovo Airport was temporarily closed. Mobile internet disruption was also possible. VK confirmed a drone targeted its regional data centre but said services were running as usual, although users had reported outages in the early hours. Ozon said a drone struck its logistics centre and started a fire; staff were evacuated and nobody was hurt.

Russia's defence ministry said it shot down more than 1,000 Ukrainian drones overnight into Sunday. The city's oil terminal was last hit in July.

Political background

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Russia had targeted Ukraine's energy sector 76 times since US President Donald Trump declared an "energy ceasefire" last week. Ukraine paused its strikes on Russian oil facilities for three days after the announcement, then resumed them, drawing Trump's displeasure.

Relations between Washington and Kyiv have frayed since the US agreed to import Russian diesel in the hope of lowering domestic energy prices. Zelensky suggested the deal amounted to investing in Russia's war effort. Russian strikes have left hundreds of thousands without power, and Zelensky said tens of thousands were still without electricity.