Ukrainian forces launched a large-scale drone attack on Russia’s second city, St Petersburg, and the surrounding Leningrad region overnight on Saturday, striking an oil terminal and, according to Kyiv, a naval base on Kotlin Island. Russian officials confirmed that the city’s Kirovsky district oil terminal was hit and that debris fell near the port of Vysotsk, which handles oil, grain, coal and liquefied natural gas. St Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov said 72 drones were shot down and no casualties were reported, while the Russian defence ministry stated that air defences had intercepted 389 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones across multiple regions, including Crimea. Moscow described the attack as an attempt to damage civilian infrastructure and promised an “appropriate response”.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy framed the operation as part of Ukraine’s “long-range sanctions” against the Russian war economy, stating that defence forces had struck port oil infrastructure generating revenue for the war and had also hit Kronstadt, a major naval facility over 850 kilometres from Ukraine’s border. Russian authorities did not confirm a strike on Kronstadt. The attack is the latest in an intensified Ukrainian campaign against Russian energy infrastructure this year, which Western military analysts note has degraded refining capacity and contributed to fuel shortages in several Russian regions. Long queues at petrol stations have been reported from Gatchina in the Leningrad region to Chita in Siberia, and Moscow has temporarily banned petrol exports while relaxing fuel-quality standards.

The strike came days after a Russian missile and drone barrage on Kyiv that killed at least 30 people, in what the city’s mayor called the deadliest attack on the capital since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. On the ground, the front line remained largely static in June, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The Russian military claimed on Friday to have fully captured the Donetsk region city of Kostyantynivka, a fortified stronghold on the road to the key Ukrainian-held cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Ukraine’s general staff denied the claim, calling it disinformation, and the ISW assessed that while Russian forces had expanded their zone of infiltration in western parts of the city, they did not control it entirely.

Viewed from European capitals, the strike on St Petersburg demonstrates Ukraine’s growing ability to hit targets deep inside Russian territory, extending the conflict’s economic and psychological impact beyond the front lines. The attack prompted Finland’s defence forces to temporarily restrict sea and air traffic in the eastern Gulf of Finland as a precaution. The dossier remains highly fluid: Moscow has signalled that further Ukrainian strikes on infrastructure will be met with escalation, while Kyiv continues to develop its long-range drone and missile programmes, with Zelenskyy stating that investment in domestic production is an investment in “forcing Russia to peace”.