On Sunday, Ukraine conducted a huge drone attack on Russia, including the international port of St. Petersburg and the burning of other oil facilities, according to the authorities. It was a result of growing differences between Kyiv and Washington regarding the strikes on Russian energy facilities in Ukraine.
After the fires at the Petersburg Oil Terminal and the Ruchi oil depot, one person was reportedly killed and five others injured, St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov said. As well, Ozon, Russia’s biggest online retailer, confirmed that the logistics centre was attacked, and tech firm VK attributed the attack to the data centre.
The Russian Defence Ministry estimates that its armed forces have intercepted or destroyed 1,015 Ukraine drones in the 15 Russian regions, the Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea during the past weeks. It’s one of the largest drone attacks against Ukraine to be reported against Russia.
Russian Strikes Kill Woman in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia
At the same time, Ukraine’s southern city of Zaporizhzhia appeared to be a target of Russian strikes, though the officials hadn’t detailed them further.
Head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration Mykhailo Semikin said that two apartment buildings were damaged, along with 18 cars and an educational institution as a result of the strikes.
The latest round of counterattacks has raised fears of civilian safety and loss of critical infrastructure as both sides have been hitting targets off the battlefield.
Energy Ceasefire Dispute Escalates Tensions with Washington
The strikes have been made days after the US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have signed a “ceasefire” in oil disarmament of the two nations on Oct. 11. But the terms were hazed and neither party could give any clear commitment to a compromise.
Ukraine’s forces have restarted strikes on Russian oil networks, it has said after a pause of three days. In the week after Trump’s comments, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed Russia attacked Ukraine’s energy, oil, and gas provinces 76 times. He also said on the current night, there had been attacks on energy facilities in four regions of Ukraine, resulting in the loss of electricity for tens of thousands of families.
Zelenskyy called on Washington to put additional pressure on Moscow in light of its ongoing aggression.
Trump said on Monday that he hadn’t taken any final decisions on new sanctions against Russia after signing an executive order to delay action on further sanctions. He calls the decision to devise a method for taking air samples from the atmosphere as serving the nation’s best interests, but offered nothing else.
The latest updates focus on the difficulties that have been encountered in the diplomatic dialogue as Russian and Ukrainian troops keep wildlife a brutal campaign against energy and other infrastructure.