Ukrainian drone attack on St. Petersburg sets oil terminal ablaze and hits VK data center
October 18, 2026 at 06:49 PM
Ukrainian drones carried out a large-scale attack on St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, early on Sunday, Oct. 18, setting fire to the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal in the city's port and to the Ruchyi oil depot [1][2]. Governor Alexander Beglov said one person was killed and that 12 apartment buildings and two houses in the city were damaged [1][2].
Russia's defense ministry said its air defenses shot down 1,015 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions overnight, and Aleksandr Drozdenko, governor of the surrounding Leningrad region, said 145 were downed over his region alone [3][4]. The attack also reached a logistics center of the e-commerce giant Ozon and a data center belonging to VK, Russia's largest social network [1][2]. VK confirmed that a drone had targeted its data center and said its services were available "as usual," although users reported outages from the early hours of the morning [1][2]. Ozon said it evacuated all of its employees and that no one was injured [2].
According to the St. Petersburg news site Fontanka, five people remained in hospitals in the city, while the number of injured in the Leningrad region rose to 10, seven of whom, including five children, were hospitalized [4]. In Yanino, in the Leningrad region, two transformer substations shut down, leaving 50 apartment buildings and about 20,000 people without power [4]. Pulkovo Airport temporarily halted flights, and by early afternoon 41 flights had been delayed by at least two hours [1][4]. The independent outlet Astra reported that a drone also struck a cable-stayed bridge on the Western High-Speed Diameter, a toll highway that links the northern and southern parts of the city [5]. Russia's Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case on charges of terrorism [4].
The Ukrainian drone maker Fire Point said on the messaging app Telegram that its FP-1 drones had been used in the attack [6].
Fires broke out at the oil terminal and the oil depot, while serious damage to the data center has also been reported.
Ukrinform (Ukraine's FP-1 drones hit oil and digital infrastructure in St. Petersburg)
The VK data center is in the village of Novosergievka in the Vsevolozhsky district of the Leningrad region, on the edge of St. Petersburg, and according to previously published data it housed more than 20,000 servers [5][6]. Since President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed that Ukraine would "respond in kind" to Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centers, Ukrainian forces have repeatedly struck data centers of Yandex, Russia's largest search engine, over the past few weeks [1][2].
The oil terminal, one of Russia's largest fuel storage and export facilities, receives and ships petroleum products by river, rail and road and handles 12.5 million tons a year, and it was also damaged in a Ukrainian strike on July 4 [2][6]. Russian state media described the attack on the city, which lies about 850 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border, as the largest it has faced since the start of the war in 2022 [2][7].
The strikes came as the halt to attacks on energy facilities that U.S. President Donald Trump declared last week was falling apart [1][2]. Ukraine paused its strikes on Russian oil facilities for three days after the announcement but resumed them this week, saying Russia had kept attacking, and Trump called the renewed strikes "a disgrace" [1][7]. On Saturday, Zelensky said Russia had targeted Ukraine's energy sector 76 times since Trump declared the "energy ceasefire" [1]. The same day, Trump waived expected sanctions targeting Russia's energy economy [7].
Relations between Washington and Kyiv have frayed since the United States struck a deal to import Russian diesel, which Zelensky has suggested amounts to investing in Russia's war effort [1]. Even so, Zelensky said on Sunday that he had spoken with Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and that the two teams were in "virtually nonstop communication" as they prepared the next diplomatic steps [1][7].
References
- [1]BBC (Oil facilities hit in deadly overnight attack on St Petersburg)
- [2]The Kyiv Independent (Massive Ukrainian drone attack hit oil facility, bridge, and data center in St. Petersburg)
- [3]The Moscow Times (1 Killed, 5 Injured in Ukrainian Drone Attack on St. Petersburg, Governor Says)
- [4]Fontanka (Атака БПЛА на Петербург 18 октября: хроника событий ночи)
- [5]Ukrinform (Drones strike oil facilities, Ozon warehouse and VKontakte data center in St. Petersburg)
- [6]Ukrinform (Ukraine's FP-1 drones hit oil and digital infrastructure in St. Petersburg)
- [7]Al Jazeera (Russia's war on Ukraine 'must be brought to an end', Zelenskyy says)