Ukraine hits oil and weapons near Russia’s St Petersburg | News of the Russia-Ukraine war

Kyiv drones disrupt St Petersburg’s internet and air travel as Russian strikes shut down a gas plant in central Ukraine.

Ukraine’s long-distance tsunami hit the St Petersburg region overnight, hitting an oil refinery and a Baltic Sea port in one of the biggest attacks on President Vladimir Putin’s home country.

Leningrad Region Governor Alexander Drozdenko said air defenses shot down 72 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the region on Saturday.

The operation, which took place about 900km (560 miles) from Ukrainian territory, caused widespread confusion.

Russian authorities have briefly suspended air traffic at the Pulkovo airport and disrupted the city’s mobile network to disrupt the movement of drones with the help of cellular networks.

St Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov said one plane crashed in the grounds of the 19th-century Peterhof Palace, and the other crashed into a petrol station in the city’s Kirovsky district.

Regional officials said the debris hit an oil refinery, a nearby port and an ancient palace. Drozdenko added that drone debris fell near the port of Vysotsk, close to the Finnish border, without posing a threat.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said 389 Ukrainian drones were intercepted overnight, but confirmed that it had taken place in the Leningrad region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian military had taken steps to finance the Russian military and hit the Kronstadt naval base in St Petersburg, calling it a “very important battle”.

Russia’s oil refining capacity has ‘stagnant’ a bit

On Saturday, Ukraine’s General Staff said the strikes had shut down 42.74 percent of Russia’s oil refining capacity since early July, saying eight refineries had been shut down last month and more than 60 tanks damaged or destroyed.

It put the company’s losses at $13.5bn as of August 2025.

Independent energy experts estimate the operational disruption to be close to a third of Russia’s energy sector.

The campaign has led to domestic oil shortages, prompting Moscow to expand oil export restrictions and impose restrictions on oil sales in more than 40 regions and annex Crimea.

Putin admitted last Sunday that the attacks had caused the oil shortage, although he called it “unnecessary” and said the damaged areas were being repaired quickly.

Meanwhile, Russia on Saturday hit a gas plant with a drone in the central Poltava region, causing a fire, Ukraine’s Naftogaz company said.

“A fire broke out at the site after the attack. Operations at the site have been suspended,” Naftogaz said on the Telegraph. “The adversary is targeting natural gas facilities in order to reduce domestic emissions in Ukraine and disrupt preparations for a hot climate,” it added.

The attack came days after a Russian attack on Kyiv killed 30 people, part of a wider exchange of views. At least four people were killed and 27 wounded when Russian forces hit the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine with glide bombs on Friday, local officials said, adding that people were trapped in the rubble of a residential building.