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Morning Edition · Sunday, October 18, 2026Published at 1:07 AM EDT · New York
Ukrainian drones set fire to a St. Petersburg oil terminal as Russian strikes halt a car-parts plant in Lutsk
The governor of the Leningrad region said air defenses shot down 126 drones. Ukrainian media say a factory that makes wiring for BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz stopped work after an October 16 attack.
Ukrainian drones attacked St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region overnight. Kommersant reported that a fire broke out at an oil terminal in the city. Civilian infrastructure also caught fire in the Nevsky, Krasnoselsky, Krasnogvardeysky and Moskovsky districts. Governor Alexander Beglov named the target as the Petersburg Oil Terminal, in the city's Big Port. Russian regional media reported that a data center serving the VKontakte social network and the Vostochnaya electrical substation were also hit. Pulkovo airport restricted flights, and local reports said no one was killed.
Moscow and Kyiv described the attack differently. TASS, Russia's state news agency, focused on interceptions and cited Leningrad Governor Alexander Drozdenko's figure of 126 drones shot down over the region. The Kyiv Independent focused on damage. Drawing on residents' footage, it reported strikes on an oil facility, a bridge and data centers. Ukraine also hit the same terminal in June, about 1,100 kilometers from the border.
Russia is hitting industrial targets deep inside Ukraine as well. Russian drones struck a Kromberg & Schubert plant in Lutsk, in northwestern Ukraine, on October 16, and the facility has halted operations. The German-owned company makes wiring systems there for BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Skoda. Its plant in Zhytomyr was struck in August.
Part of a tracked trend
Ukraine's Deep Strikes on Russian Energy and Logistics
Ukraine sustains a campaign against Russian refineries and supply lines over the next 3-6 months, pressuring Moscow's oil revenue while Russia retaliates against Ukraine's grid.
Veracity: Corroborated
82/100- If true, who benefits
Kyiv gains leverage over a US-Russia diesel arrangement it was not part of, and diesel refiners outside Russia gain if Baltic product exports fall.
- The nuance
Russian officials confirmed a fire at the terminal but not its scale, the 126-interception count and the Ukrainian damage list drawn from residents' footage are unverified claims by the two warring sides, and the Lutsk shutdown rests on Ukrainian reporting, following a documented August strike on the same company's Zhytomyr plant.
An open-source-intelligence read of how likely this story is true with its real nuance, not a judgment of any outlet. It assesses the claim, weighing independent and adversarial reporting. How we label confidence.
What this means
The St. Petersburg terminal is part of Russia's Baltic export system for oil products, and diesel is the product Moscow has just promised Washington. Each strike on export infrastructure makes Russia less able to deliver the November diesel volumes Trump announced. That supports diesel prices in Europe and the United States, and it gives Kyiv leverage against a US-Russia energy deal it was not part of. Russia's strikes on foreign-owned plants in western Ukraine raise insurance and relocation costs for European manufacturers that moved production there for cheap labor. The precedent is Ukraine's 2025 campaign against Russian refineries, which led Moscow to [restrict fuel exports](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Russian_fuel_crisis) to protect its home market. The desk's read is that Ukraine will keep targeting Baltic product terminals over the coming weeks, and that Russian diesel deliveries under the Trump deal will fall short of the promised schedule. The read would be wrong if Washington publicly presses Kyiv to spare export terminals and the strikes shift back to refineries serving Russia's domestic market.
Synthesized from: Kommersant · TASS · Kyiv Independent · Kyiv Independent
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