Ukrainian drones were reported to have struck an oil terminal, a data center and a bridge in St. Petersburg during a large overnight attack on Oct. 18. Russian state media said the target list included the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal and a data center belonging to VKontakte, while videos from the city appeared to show a drone hitting an eight lane bridge and the oil terminal burning.
Aleksandr Drozdenko said 127 Ukrainian drones were shot down in Leningrad Oblast and that debris damaged four cars in a parking lot. He also said fires were reported in the region, but the damage assessment that emerged overnight did not make clear how many drones actually reached their targets or how much of the reported destruction was confirmed on the ground.
The attack began at 2:50 a.m. local time, according to Ukrainian monitoring channels Exilenova+ and Supernova+, and eyewitness footage from St. Petersburg appeared to show drones in the air and air defense systems firing. Astra also reported that a power substation was hit, with blackouts and low water pressure in the region, and said an apartment building was damaged.
The St. Petersburg Oil Terminal sits in the city's port and is one of Russia's largest fuel storage and export facilities, with a reported throughput of 12.5 million tons per year. Fire Point claimed a FP-1 attack drone was used in the strike, but the extent of damage to the terminal, the bridge and the VKontakte data center remained unclear in the immediate aftermath. That uncertainty matters because the attack appears to have reached deep into one of Russia's biggest cities even as officials described many interceptions in Leningrad Oblast.
St. Petersburg has been targeted repeatedly through the war, and the latest strike fits a wider pattern of swarming drone attacks that have pushed Russian air defenses and hit infrastructure far from the Ukrainian border. The timing also follows earlier damage to the same oil terminal on July 4 and comes after Russian drones hit the Lutsk facility on Oct. 16, a sign that both sides are now reaching farther and harder into each other's rear areas. For now, the unanswered question is not whether the city came under attack, but how much of the reported damage survived the night.
