Smoke rises above the oil terminal in St. Petersburg, Russia after Ukrainian drone strikes, July 4, 2026
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UPDATE 0657 GMT:
Ukraine’s air defenses downed 69 of 86 drones fired by Russia overnight, but 17 UAVs and two missiles hit 16 locations.
UPDATE 0535 GMT:/h1> President Volodymyr Zelensky has commented on Russia’s latest mass killing.
Four civilians were murdered, including a child, and 27 injured in Sumy in northeast Ukraine on Friday. The Russians dropped guided aerial bombs on the city center, trapping people under the rubble of an apartment building.
In Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, a drone attack killed two people and six injured, including a child. A first-person drone injured civilians in Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv. Communities across the Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Donetsk regions were attacked.
Zelensky posted:
It is essential that our partners pressure Russia so that this terror comes to an end….
We must remember that Europe has tools it can use to pressure this aggressor – above all, pressure its energy sector, its oil fleet, and its financial system. Those tools must be used.
We must also take further steps to strengthen our defense, first and foremost our air defense.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine has again struck the St. Petersburg oil terminal in northwest Russia.
Explosions were heard around 6:30 a.m. Saturday as residents reported long-range drones over the Leningrad region. Photos and videos showed black plumes of smoke and fire rising from the port area of the city.
The oil terminal on the Gulf of Finland is one of Russia’s largest fuel storage and export facilities. It has a reported throughput of 12.5 million tons per year.
Ukraine’s strikes damaged the area in early June, undermining Vladimir Putin’s showcase St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
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Ukraine also set afire a ferry terminal and airfield in Russian-occupied Crimea, which is enduring a ban on gasoline sales and power outages amid sustained attacks by Kyiv seeking to cut off the peninsula.
A Ukrainian missile strike on Belgorod in western Russia disrupted power and water supply across the city.
Russia’s fourth-largest refinery and second-largest producer of gasoline, Lukoil-Nizhegorodorgsintez, has halted operations after a drone strike on Thursday, say two industry sources.
p>The strike damaged the AVT-6 primary crude oil processing unit, responsible for 53% of its capacity.
The facility, in Kstovo in the Nizhny Novgorod region, also shut down on June 24 after an overnight drone attack.
