KYIV (AFP) - Ukraine launched a large-scale drone attack on St Petersburg and its surrounding oil infrastructure overnight Saturday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Russian claims that Moscow had seized the strategically important eastern city of Kostiantynivka as a “lie”.
The drone strikes on Russia’s second-largest city and the surrounding Leningrad region are part of Kyiv’s ongoing campaign to deepen fuel shortages in Russia.
St Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov said the city of 6 million was subjected to a “large-scale” attack that struck an oil terminal. He reported no casualties and said the aftermath of the attack had been dealt with.
Leningrad region Governor Alexander Drozdenko said a drone struck the area of Vysotsk port, about 170 kilometres northwest of St Petersburg on the Baltic Sea.
Zelensky calls Russian claim of capturing Kostiantynivka a ‘lie’
The port handles oil, grain, coal and liquefied natural gas. Drozdenko noted that 72 drones were shot down over the region, causing minor damage in several settlements.
“Ukraine’s defence forces struck port oil infrastructure that generates revenue for Russia’s war and also hit Kronstadt, an important military target more than 850km from Ukraine’s state border,” Zelensky said in a post on Telegram.
There was no Russian confirmation of a strike on Kronstadt, a major naval base near St Petersburg.
South of St Petersburg, the governor of Pskov region said more than 30 drones had been shot down overnight. He reported minor damage and injuries, including at a factory in the town of Velikiye Luki.
Elsewhere, the governor of Russia’s Bryansk region, as well as the Russian-installed governor of Crimea, said that drone strikes had killed one person in each region, with several more wounded.
In the Leningrad region town of Gatchina on Friday, long queues were seen at fuel stations, with some outlets entirely out of fuel.
Meanwhile, Zelensky and the General Staff firmly rejected Russian military claims made to President Vladimir Putin on Friday that Moscow’s forces had taken control of Kostiantynivka.
“Of course, that is not true. It is just another Russian lie, an attempt to generate some kind of a news story,” Zelensky said on X. “If Kostiantynivka were under Russian control, then perhaps Putin would have no problem meeting me there to find a diplomatic way to finally end this war.”
The General Staff stated that Ukrainian military units continue to conduct defensive operations within the town.
Kostiantynivka is the southernmost of four key settlements forming a defensive “fortress belt” in the heavily industrialised Donetsk region. Analysts say capturing it would give Russian forces a crucial foothold.
Meanwhile, Russia continued its own bombardments. A Russian attack on a coal enterprise in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region killed one person, injured five miners and caused significant damage on Friday, Ukraine’s major private energy company DTEK said on Saturday.