Ukraine launches over 1,000 drones at Russia, setting oil facilities ablaze

At least one person has been killed, and five others injured after Ukraine launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia, one of Kyiv’s largest aerial strikes in the war.

St Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov said firefighters were battling fires sparked by Sunday’s attacks on the St Petersburg oil terminal, the Ruchi oil depot and industrial warehouses in the Kolpinsky district south of the city.

The governor said the “massive” strike killed at least one person and injured five, and that several residential buildings and two houses were also hit.

The attack disrupted flights at St Petersburg’s main airport, one of the country’s busiest, which was restricting operations “for safety reasons”, Beglov said.

Russian e-commerce company Ozon said there was a fire at its logistics hub in St Petersburg. The internet company VK said drones attacked its data centre in the broader Leningrad region, adding that normal services were available to users.

Leningrad Governor Alexander Drozdenko said 145 drones had been shot down and about 20,000 people were without electricity following the drone raid.

The Ministry of Defence said 1,015 Ukrainian drones were neutralised overnight over 15 Russian regions, the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the Black Sea.

US-Ukraine tensions deepen

The strikes came as tensions between Kyiv and Washington deepened, with US President Donald Trump criticising Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil infrastructure, and the prospect of further US sanctions against Moscow still uncertain.

On Sunday, Trump defended his Friday decision to put a hold on implementing new sanctions on Russia, saying he did not want to do anything that would “foolishly” drive Moscow “away from the bargaining table”.

In a social media post, the US president said he believed new sanctions would undermine negotiations to bring about a diplomatic end to Moscow’s war on Ukraine, refuting bipartisan criticism that he was favouring Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interests over Kyiv’s.

Trump also lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been critical of Trump’s recent outreach to Putin, for launching strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, claiming Zelenskyy “doesn’t want to end this war”.

Trump had announced on October 11 that Russia and Ukraine agreed to an “energy ceasefire”, but offered no details. Zelenskyy told The Financial Times that he was “done” with the ceasefire a few days later, after holding off on striking Russia’s energy facilities while Moscow had continued attacking Ukraine’s.

Zelenskyy wrote on X on Sunday that Russia had attacked Ukraine’s energy, oil and gas sectors 76 times in the week since Trump’s announcement.

Energy facilities in four Ukrainian regions were struck overnight, leaving tens of thousands of families without power, he said, accusing Russia of trying to “cause a blackout”.

“America should see that Russia is not taking any reciprocal steps in response to sanctions relief or agreements,” he said.

Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Zelenskyy said that waiving sanctions against Russia would strengthen Putin’s war effort. He also said US-Ukraine intelligence sharing had resumed after being “blocked for some period of time”.

Zelenskyy said that while he trusted Trump, siding with Moscow would be a tragedy and a “historic mistake” for Washington.

Later on Sunday, Zelenskyy said on social media that he had spoken with US presidential envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about the results of an October 9 meeting between Washington and Kyiv’s negotiating teams in Miami, as well as the “next steps in diplomacy”.

Russian strikes kill two

Meanwhile, a Russian air strike ⁠killed ⁠a woman in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, overnight while also hitting a subway station and damaging a 25-storey residential ⁠building, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram on Monday.

The attack, which also hit non-residential buildings and a medical facility, ‌injured three other people in Kyiv, Klitschko said.

Two Russian attacks on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia killed a woman and wounded at least two other people, including a six-year-old girl, local officials said on Sunday.

In another post on X on Sunday, Zelenskyy said Russian strikes on residential buildings had killed two people and injured 12, including two children, in Volyn.

“This morning, there was a strike on an agricultural enterprise in Volyn. All necessary services are working at the site,” he said.

“In total, over this past week, the Russians have attacked Ukraine with almost 2,700 attack drones, 1,700 aerial bombs, and 66 missiles, most of them ballistic,” the Ukrainian president wrote.