Ukraine drones hit St Petersburg oil terminal as Zelenskyy targets Kronstadt

Ukrainian drones struck an oil terminal in St Petersburg and a military site in Kronstadt, Kyiv said. The attack keeps pressure on Russia's war economy as both sides dispute battlefield claims and trade strikes far from the front.

In Short

• Russia said air defences downed 72 drones over the city region
• Zelenskyy called the strikes Ukraine's long-range sanctions on war funding
• Crimea attacks killed one person and forced petrol sales suspension

A Ukrainian drone attack hit an oil terminal in St Petersburg on Saturday, Russian officials said, as Kyiv kept up its strikes on Russia's oil infrastructure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack was part of Ukraine's "long-range sanctions" against Russia and said Ukrainian forces had also struck a military target on the island of Kronstadt, just off the coast of St Petersburg.

The attack came as almost daily long-range strikes on Russian oil facilities continue to put pressure on the Kremlin and deepen a fuel crisis, with the war now in its fifth year. The latest developments also underlined how the fighting is affecting people inside Russia, even as Moscow and Kyiv traded sharply different claims over the battlefield situation in eastern Ukraine.

St Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov said the city's Kirovsky district on the Baltic Sea was hit. He added that air defences shot down 72 Ukrainian drones over Russia's second-largest city and the surrounding region.

Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram: "The Ukrainian defence forces hit the port oil infrastructure, which earns money for the Russian war, and there were also hits on Kronstadt - an important military target." The Kirovsky district had also been hit in June, ahead of Russia's flagship St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, has also been hit heavily in recent strikes. Moscow-installed Governor Sergei Aksyonov said a Ukrainian attack on Saturday killed one person and injured two others, including a 10-year-old child. The strikes have led local authorities there to suspend petrol sales to civilians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has described Ukraine's attacks on Russia's energy facilities as "not critical" and has said the war will continue until his goals are met. He has also said the strikes are an attempt by Ukraine to distract attention from its battlefield losses, though analysts say Russian advances have been checked in recent months.

On Friday, Putin visited the Russian military headquarters overseeing the war in Ukraine and received a report on the capture of the city of Kostyantynivka after weeks of intense street fighting. He called it a key step towards taking the nearby cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which remain major Ukrainian strongholds in the so-called "forest belt" of heavily fortified cities in the Donetsk region. The capture of Kostyantynivka, a major transport and industrial hub, is of "major strategic importance", Putin said in televised remarks while wearing military fatigues.

Ukrainian officials denied that Russia had taken control of Kostiantynivka. In comments to Ukrainska Pravda, General Staff spokesperson Maj. Andriy Kovalev accused Moscow of spreading "outright disinformation" and said Russian forces had not succeeded in capturing the city.

The war's impact was also felt elsewhere. Local media reported that the border city of Belgorod was left almost completely without power on Saturday after overnight Ukrainian drone strikes. In Ukraine, local authorities said eight people, including two children, were wounded after a Russian attack hit residential buildings in the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region.

The latest attacks showed both sides keeping up pressure far from the front line, with Ukraine targeting Russian oil and military sites and Russia continuing strikes on Ukrainian cities, even as Moscow and Kyiv disputed the situation on the battlefield.

With PTI Inputs

- Ends