Drone attack kills 1, injures 5 in St. Petersburg and sets oil terminal and depot ablaze, governor says; Russia claims 1,015 drones downed

As of 6:25 a.m. ET, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026

A drone attack on St. Petersburg overnight into Sunday, Oct. 18, killed one person and injured five, who were hospitalized, Gov. Alexander Beglov said on Telegram, blaming Ukraine. Beglov said firefighters were still battling fires at the Petersburg Oil Terminal, the Ruchyi oil depot and industrial warehouses in the Kolpino district, and that 12 apartment buildings and two private homes had been damaged. Residents evacuated overnight were returning home, he said.

Russia's Defense Ministry claimed its air defenses destroyed 1,015 Ukrainian drones between 8 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. Sunday Moscow time (1 p.m. Saturday to 1 a.m. Sunday ET) over 13 regions, the Moscow region, Krasnodar, Crimea and the Black Sea. The figure is the ministry's claim and could not be independently verified. Ukraine's General Staff had not commented on the St. Petersburg attack as of 4:13 a.m. ET.

St. Petersburg

Beglov's toll came in a post at 2:19 a.m. ET Sunday, after the air-raid threat had been lifted. In an earlier post at 10:36 p.m. ET Saturday, he had said there were no casualties and that fires were being put out at civilian infrastructure sites in the Nevsky, Krasnoselsky, Krasnogvardeysky and Moskovsky districts and at the oil terminal. bne IntelliNews, citing Moscow 24, also reported no casualties on preliminary information. Beglov's later figure of one dead and five injured supersedes those reports. He did not identify the person who was killed.

The Petersburg Oil Terminal is a fuel storage and export facility in the city's port, bne IntelliNews reported. ASTRA, an independent Russian outlet, had geolocated residents' videos of the fire to the terminal overnight, and described it as one of the largest bulk-liquids terminals in the Baltic region, with 21 storage tanks and capacity of 12.5 million tonnes a year. The terminal was hit in earlier Ukrainian attacks in June and July. No halt to its operations had been reported, bne said.

Russian e-commerce company Ozon said its logistics center in St. Petersburg caught fire, Reuters reported. Staff were evacuated and no injuries were reported at the site, the company said, according to Anadolu Agency. Russian internet company VK said one of its data centers in the Leningrad region was attacked by drones and that its services remained available, Reuters and the AP reported. Overnight, Fontanka had reported a spike in complaints about access to VK's social network VKontakte and mobile internet disruptions in the city and region. Beglov also warned of possible mobile internet outages.

Fontanka reported overnight that a roof was smoldering at 58 5th Line, at the corner of Maly Prospekt on Vasilyevsky Island, with glass scattered around the building; it did not give a cause. ASTRA geolocated readers' photos of a fire near the Dvortsovy Fasad residential complex in Strelna.

Leningrad region

Leningrad region Gov. Alexander Drozdenko's overnight count of drones shot down over the region rose from 11 by 3 a.m. Moscow time (8 p.m. ET) to 95 by 4:41 a.m. (9:41 p.m. ET), according to Fontanka and RIA Novosti. Kommersant later reported that air defenses had shot down 135 drones over the region overnight.

Drozdenko said four people were hospitalized, drone debris fell on an apartment building in Gatchina and 55 parked vehicles were damaged in Novosyolye, Anadolu Agency reported. He said an emergency power outage affected 50 apartment buildings and left about 20,000 people without electricity, according to Anadolu. In Vsevolozhsk, a woman and three children suffered carbon monoxide poisoning in a fire that started when drone debris fell on a house, Kommersant reported. Earlier, Drozdenko had said debris hit an apartment building in Vsevolozhsk, a private house near Kirovsk, four cars in Nizino and power lines. Russia's Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under the terrorism article, Kommersant reported.

Airports

Russia's civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia imposed temporary restrictions on flights at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport "to ensure flight safety," RIA Novosti reported at 2:02 a.m. Moscow time (7:02 p.m. ET Saturday). Interfax reported restrictions at the airports in Yaroslavl and Ivanovo, and earlier closures at Pskov, Cherepovets and Moscow's Vnukovo and Domodedovo. At 4:45 a.m. Moscow time (9:45 p.m. ET), Pulkovo's press service said passengers and staff had been moved to safe places, Fontanka and Kommersant reported. Bumaga noted that in earlier attacks Pulkovo had closed its airspace but had not moved passengers out of terminal areas.

Moscow

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 512 drones flew toward the Moscow region between 8:30 a.m. Saturday and 8:30 a.m. Sunday Moscow time, that most were destroyed by air defenses far from the capital, and that 127 were neutralized on approach to Moscow. His overnight posts had reported destroying 127 drones "flying toward Moscow" between 11 p.m. Saturday and 4:42 a.m. Sunday Moscow time. He did not report damage or casualties. On Saturday afternoon ET, Reuters reported that Sobyanin had said 195 drones had been destroyed since midnight, a figure that included earlier attacks.

Claims from both sides

The Defense Ministry's 1,015 figure was posted on its Telegram channel at 1:55 a.m. ET Sunday. Ukraine's General Staff had not mentioned St. Petersburg in its posts as of 4:13 a.m. ET Sunday; it said Russia had attacked Ukraine overnight with an Iskander-M ballistic missile and 180 drones, 152 of which were shot down or suppressed. In a post on X on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had attacked Ukraine's energy, oil and gas sectors 76 times in the week since U.S. President Donald Trump announced an "energy ceasefire," the AP reported. Russian and Ukrainian official figures cannot be independently verified.