Ukraine strikes St. Petersburg oil site as Russia claims battlefield gain
Russian officials said drones hit an oil terminal, while Moscow and Kyiv gave opposing accounts of fighting around Kostyantynivka.
By Maya Lindqvist · Senior Technology Correspondent
3 min read
Ukrainian drones hit an oil terminal in St. Petersburg on Saturday, Russian officials said, extending Kyiv’s campaign against energy sites that help finance Moscow’s war. The attacks have worsened fuel shortages inside Russia and added pressure on the Kremlin as the war moves through its fifth year, according to the Associated Press.
Alexander Beglov, the governor of St. Petersburg, said the Kirovsky district, near the Baltic Sea, was struck. He said Russian air defenses destroyed 72 Ukrainian drones over the city and its surrounding region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the operation on Telegram as part of Ukraine’s “long-range sanctions” against Russia. He said Ukrainian forces hit port oil infrastructure tied to Russia’s war effort and also struck a military target on Kronstadt, an island off St. Petersburg.
The Kirovsky district was also attacked in June before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the AP reported. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russian refineries, depots and other oil facilities with long-range drones.
Fuel pressure spreads inside Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the strikes on energy sites are “not critical” and has argued that Ukraine is trying to shift attention from battlefield losses. Analysts cited by the AP say Russian advances have slowed in recent months.
The fuel disruption has been especially severe in Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, where local authorities suspended gasoline sales to civilians after heavy strikes, according to the AP. Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed governor, said a Ukrainian attack Saturday killed one person and wounded two others, including a 10-year-old child.
Belgorod, a Russian border city that has faced repeated Ukrainian drone attacks, was left almost entirely without electricity after overnight strikes, local media reported, according to the AP.
The attacks have pushed the war deeper into daily life for Russians, challenging Putin’s effort to present the conflict as distant from ordinary households, the AP reported. Putin has maintained that Russia will keep fighting until its objectives are achieved.
Moscow and Kyiv dispute control of city
Putin visited the Russian military command overseeing the war in Ukraine on Friday and received a report that Russian forces had captured Kostyantynivka, according to the AP. In televised remarks, he called the city’s capture strategically important because of its position near Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, two major fortified cities in Ukraine-held parts of Donetsk.
Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, first deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, said Saturday that Ukrainian troops had been forced back several kilometers and that fighting had reached the outskirts of nearby Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka. He said Russian units were clearing remaining parts of Kostyantynivka and searching for Ukrainian fighters in basements and ruins.
Zelenskyy rejected Moscow’s account, calling the claim that Russia controlled Kostyantynivka “another Russian lie” in a social media post. He said Putin would not cross the front line and accused him of misleading the world and U.S. President Donald Trump about battlefield conditions ahead of America’s Independence Day.
Russian attacks also continued inside Ukraine. Local authorities in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region said Saturday that eight people were wounded, including two children, when Russian strikes hit residential buildings.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.