Ukraine hits oil and military facilities near Russia’s St Petersburg
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- Ukraine launched long-range drones roughly 900km from Ukrainian-held territory into Russia's Leningrad region overnight, striking an oil terminal in St Petersburg's Kirovsky district and the Kronstadt naval base, with debris also falling near the port of Vysotsk and the 18th-century Peterhof Palace grounds.
- Russian air defences intercepted 72 UAVs over the Leningrad region per Governor Alexander Drozdenko, while the Defence Ministry claimed 389 Ukrainian drones were shot down nationwide; Pulkovo Airport briefly halted flights and municipal mobile internet was throttled to jam the drones' cellular-backed navigation.
- Zelenskyy confirmed the Kronstadt naval base strike, calling it "an important military target," while Ukraine's General Staff claims the campaign has disabled 42.74% of Russia's oil refining capacity — eight refineries hit in the past month, 60+ storage tanks destroyed or damaged, with cumulative industry losses of $13.5bn since August 2025.
- Putin acknowledged last Sunday that the attacks are causing fuel shortages, calling them "not critical," as Moscow extended petrol export bans and imposed fuel sale restrictions across more than 40 regions and annexed Crimea.
- Russia struck a gas production facility in Ukraine's central Poltava region with a drone on Saturday, causing a fire and suspending operations, per Naftogaz, which said Moscow is "systematically targeting" gas output to complicate Ukraine's heating-season preparations.
- Russian strikes killed 30 people in Kyiv days earlier and at least 4 with 27 injured in the northeastern city of Sumy on Friday when glide bombs hit a residential building, with officials reporting people remained trapped in the rubble.
Why it matters: Ukraine's deep-strike campaign has disabled a stated 42.74% of Russian oil refining capacity — eight refineries hit in the past month, $13.5bn in cumulative losses since August 2025 — forcing Moscow to ban petrol exports and ration fuel across 40+ regions, a material degradation of war-funding energy infrastructure Putin himself has now acknowledged. Russia's reciprocal hit on Poltava gas infrastructure targets Ukraine's heating-season readiness in kind.
