Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s St Petersburg kills 1, hits energy sites

Zelenskyy says Russian attacks on Ukraine overnight kill two people, adding Moscow continues to break energy ceasefire.Smoke rises above the city following a Ukrainian air attack on the oil terminal in St Petersburg on October 18, 2026 [AFP]Published On 18 Oct 2026A “massive” Ukrainian drone attack on St Petersburg in Russia has killed at least one person and injured five others, the city’s governor said on Sunday.Alexandre Beglov said firefighters were battling blazes at the St Petersburg oil terminal, the Ruchi oil depot and industrial warehouses in the Kolpino district south of the city.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Israel’s ties with Europe are fraying. Can its election change that?list 2 of 3Why Iran-US negotiations keep failinglist 3 of 3Photos: Protests across France spiral into looting, blazes and clashesend of listThe governor said several residential buildings were also hit, along with two houses.City authorities said the attack disrupted flights at St Petersburg’s main airport, one of the country’s busiest, which was restricting operations “for safety reasons”, Beglov said.Russian e-commerce company Ozon said there was a fire at its logistics hub in St Petersburg, and the internet company VK said its data centre in the Leningrad region had been attacked by drones, adding that normal services were available to users.The governor of the Leningrad region surrounding St Petersburg, Alexander Drozdenko, said 145 drones had been shot down and about 20,000 people were without electricity following the drone raid.Russia’s state-run news agency TASS said the attack was the largest on the region in the last four years.Moscow’s defence ministry said 1,015 Ukrainian drones were neutralised overnight.Russian strikes kill twoIn Ukraine, Russian forces struck residential buildings overnight, killing two people and injuring 12, including two children, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Sunday.“This morning, there was a strike on an agricultural enterprise in Volyn. All necessary services are working at the site,” he said.“In total, over this past week, the Russians have attacked Ukraine with almost 2,700 attack drones, 1,700 aerial bombs, and 66 missiles, most of them ballistic.”Rescuers work at the site an apartment building damaged during a Russian air strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on October 17, 2026 [Reuters]The attacks came after Zelenskyy said this week that Kyiv would resume hitting Russian refineries, insisting he was standing up for his war-torn country, as support from the United States declined.Zelenskyy told the British newspaper the Financial Times this week that Kyiv was “done” with an “energy ceasefire” unilaterally declared by United States President Donald Trump and would resume strikes on Russia in retaliation for a wave of attacks.‘Energy ceasefire’ faltersTrump announced an immediate “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine last week, but Zelenskyy said Moscow continued to violate the deal.“Since the American President announced the energy ceasefire a week ago, Russia has deliberately attacked Ukraine’s energy and oil and gas sectors 76 times,” he wrote in his X post on Sunday.“Last night alone, there were strikes on substations in the Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, and Odesa regions,” he wrote, adding that tens of thousands of families remained without power as energy workers and repair crews worked round the clock to restore supplies.Zelenskyy also said that the main targets of Moscow’s recent strikes were energy facilities, as the Russians were trying to “cause a blackout”.“America should see that Russia is not taking any reciprocal steps in response to sanctions relief or agreements,” he said.Trump is also facing criticism in both Europe and the US after he signed an executive order on Friday to waive sanctions and tariffs targeting Moscow’s energy revenues.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that Trump’s waiver would be a pause to “analyse” their impact on the global economy.“The president wants to take the 60-day period of time to sort of analyse what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy and even to the US economy,” Rubio said, noting that the economic restrictions involved a number of countries, not just Russia.Trump said late on Saturday his decision would benefit the US.“We’ll figure it out, and you’ll figure it out,” he said. “It’s a very good decision, and it’s going to be a decision that’s good for the country, and I think good for the world.”