A Ukrainian drone attack early Sunday (October 18) hit fuel transshipment infrastructure, a major corporate data center, a logistics warehouse and a highway bridge crossing St. Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad region, sparking multiple fires and cutting power to 20,000 residents.
St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov confirmed that the municipality was attacked overnight by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), causing fires in four districts of the city.
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Beglov acknowledged impacts to the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal (PNT) as well as damage to other infrastructure sites, while saying emergency responders had been dispatched to contain the localized fires.
According to independent Russian media outlet Astra, municipal emergency alert systems did not warn residents before the strikes, with alerts being transmitted either after the impacts or with significant operational delays.
Open source intelligence (OSINT) analysis conducted by Astra verified that fires broke out at the St. Petersburg oil terminal, the main oil transshipment center in the Baltic region.
At the same time, in the Krasnogvardeisky district, drone debris ignited a fire at the “Ruchyi” oil depot. The Ruchyi Fuel Depot maintains an operational capacity of 3,900 cubic meters, operating as a bulk storage and loading facility for AI-92 and AI-95 gasoline as well as commercial diesel.
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Hits on the Ozon VK data center, substation and logistics depot
The nighttime assault extended across administrative borders to the Leningrad region, targeting companies’ digital infrastructure and power distribution facilities.
In the village of Novosergievka, Vsevolozhsk district, attack drones hit a large server data center owned by Russian technology giant VK (VKontakte).
Although VK company representatives claimed that corporate services continued to operate normally, users across Russia reported widespread connection outages affecting the VKontakte social media platform and its integrated ecosystem.
Astra’s OSINT analysts established that an electrical substation located next to the VK data center was also damaged in the attack.
Leningrad Region Governor Alexander Drozdenko confirmed that damage to power distribution facilities had triggered emergency power cuts, leaving around 20,000 residents in the region without power.
Separately, Russian e-commerce company Ozon confirmed that an air strike sparked a fire at its distribution center located in St. Petersburg’s Kolpino district on Sofiyskaya Street.
Operating as one of the busiest logistics facilities in Ozon in northwest Russia, the hub spans 79,000 square meters.
The company said emergency crews brought the fire under control and confirmed that no staff members were injured.
Strike on Western High-Speed Diameter Bridge
Drone impacts have also been recorded on municipal transport arteries. According to Astra, a drone hit the cable-stayed bridge spanning the Korabelny fairway in St. Petersburg, located approximately 4.5 kilometers from the St. Petersburg oil terminal.
The bridge constitutes a critical section of the Western High-Speed Diameter (WHSD) South Viaduct, a multi-lane toll highway connecting the northern and southern sectors of the metropolis.
Municipal engineering teams were deployed to assess structural damage to the suspension cables and road deck.
The strikes on multiple sites in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region reflect an expanding Ukrainian asymmetric campaign aimed at degrading Russian rear logistics, oil transshipment and digital business logistics.
The incident follows back-to-back strikes on Russian tech hubs earlier this month, including attacks that disabled Yandex data centers in the Vladimir, Ryazan and Kaluga regions, as well as reported strikes on a Sberbank data center in the Saratov region.
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