A Ukrainian drone strike hit an oil terminal in Russia's St Petersburg on Saturday, Russian officials said, as Kyiv intensified its long-range campaign against Russia's energy infrastructure.
Ukraine has targeted Russian oil facilities almost daily in recent months in an effort to disrupt fuel supplies and increase pressure on the Kremlin as the war entered its fifth year.
St Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov said the strike hit the Kirovsky district on the Baltic Sea. He added that Russian air defences intercepted 72 Ukrainian drones over the city and surrounding areas.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the operation formed part of Ukraine's "long-range sanctions" against Russia. In a post on Telegram, he said Ukrainian forces had struck oil infrastructure at the port and a military target on Kronstadt Island, off the coast of St Petersburg.
"The Ukrainian defence forces hit the port's oil infrastructure, which helps finance Russia's war, and also struck Kronstadt, an important military target," he said.
The Kirovsky district was also targeted in June, shortly before Russia hosted the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Ukraine also continued its attacks on Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. Moscow-installed Governor Sergei Aksyonov said a Ukrainian strike on Saturday killed one person and injured two others, including a 10-year-old child. Repeated attacks have forced local authorities to suspend petrol sales to civilians.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Ukraine's strikes on Russia's energy facilities as "not critical" and insisted Moscow would continue the war until its objectives were achieved. He argued that the attacks were intended to divert attention from Ukraine's battlefield setbacks. However, military analysts say Russia's advances have slowed in recent months.
On Friday, the Russian president visited the military headquarters overseeing the war, where he received a report claiming Russian forces had captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostyantynivka after weeks of heavy fighting. He described the reported capture as an important step towards advancing on the nearby cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, two of Ukraine's remaining strongholds in the Donetsk region.
Putin called the capture of Kostyantynivka, a major transport and industrial centre, a development of "major strategic importance".
Ukraine rejected the claim. General Staff spokesperson Major Andriy Kovalev told local media that Russian forces had not taken control of the city and accused Moscow of spreading "outright disinformation".
The expanding drone campaign has increasingly brought the conflict onto Russian territory. Local media reported that the border city of Belgorod was left almost entirely without electricity on Saturday following overnight Ukrainian drone attacks.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities said eight people, including two children, were injured after Russian strikes hit residential buildings in the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region on Saturday.
