Ukraine strikes oil terminal and naval facilities near St Petersburg
Ukraine struck an oil terminal in St Petersburg’s Kirovsky district along with port and naval facilities on the Baltic, including sites near the Kronstadt naval base and the port of Vysotsk close to the Finnish border. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the strikes hit oil infrastructure that funds Russia’s war and described Kronstadt as “an important military target.” Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attack on civilian targets “will not go unanswered,” and the regional governor reported 72 drones shot down.
The operation forced a brief halt to flights at Pulkovo Airport and prompted authorities to throttle mobile networks to disrupt drone navigation. St Petersburg sits well over 600 kilometers from the front, so reaching it signals both the range of Ukraine’s long-distance drone program and Russia’s difficulty defending rear-area energy sites.
Kyiv’s general staff claimed the past month’s strikes had disrupted a large share of Russia’s refining capacity; independent analysts put the figure closer to a third. The intent is economic — squeezing the export revenue and fuel supply that sustain the war — rather than territorial, and the disruption is measured over weeks as facilities are repaired and hit again.