St Petersburg drone attack: oil terminal, VK data centre and Ozon warehouse — 18 October 2026 report

St Petersburg Oil Terminal was one of the main facilities targeted overnight. Published footage shows a fire on the premises, thick smoke and a burning tank.

Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported the strikes and their aftermath. Ukrainian media also reported the fire at the oil terminal.

The terminal receives, stores and handles petroleum products, including export cargoes. It is an important link in Russia’s Baltic oil logistics, connecting fuel producers with maritime transport.

According to Apostrophe, Fire Point said Ukrainian defence forces used FP-1 drones to strike the terminal. The outlet gives its annual handling capacity as 12.5 million tonnes.

Another facility targeted was a data centre supporting VKontakte in Leningrad Oblast.

At the time, users reported problems accessing the social network and related services.

A data centre houses servers, network equipment, power supplies and cooling systems. It handles requests, stores information and supports online platforms.

On the morning of 18 October, footage emerged of a fire at an Ozon logistics facility in St Petersburg covering around 51,500 square metres. Ukrainska Pravda also reported this figure.

Logistics complexes of this scale combine storage, sorting and movement of large volumes of goods, including military-use items. Disruption at one centre requires routes to be reorganised and increases pressure on the rest of the network.

During the same attack, reports emerged of a drone hitting the cable-stayed bridge over the Korabelny Fairway.

The bridge is part of the Western High-Speed Diameter, a motorway connecting southern and northern St Petersburg.

Separately, OSINT channels reported a possible strike on the 330 kV Vostochnaya electricity substation near the data centre. Reports of power outages and internet and mobile service disruptions accompanied the attack.

Reports of damage to the bridge and substation remain preliminary.

On the morning of 18 October, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces published their results for the previous day, 17 October.

The grouping’s units reported 2,012 enemy targets destroyed or hit. Russian personnel casualties attributed to the grouping totalled 657 killed or wounded, including 343 killed.

The reported results also included:

• 56 drone launch positions;
• one surface-to-air missile system;
• 23 radars, radio reconnaissance, electronic warfare and communications systems;
• 103 vehicles and pieces of specialised or engineering equipment;
• 21 depots;
• 342 drones of various types.

According to the Unmanned Systems Forces, 657 personnel hit in one day is the grouping’s highest daily figure since records began.

For 1–17 October, its units reported 36,790 targets destroyed or hit and 8,914 Russian personnel killed or wounded.