Ukraine's Largest Drone Strike Paralyses Putin's Hometown

Ukraine launched its largest drone attack of the war on Sunday against St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, killing one person and injuring five others. The assault came after US President Donald Trump suspended new sanctions on Russia and authorised the export of Russian diesel to the United States. Around 150 drones struck oil, logistics and digital infrastructure in St. Petersburg — the hometown of Russian President Vladimir Putin — and the neighbouring Leningrad region during the night. "I couldn't sleep all night. The battle between drones and anti-aircraft missiles took place literally above our heads," one resident told the Spanish news agency EFE. The attack paralysed a city of more than five million people for several hours. Fires broke out at two oil terminals, including Ruchi, the city's largest, with a storage capacity of nearly 74,000 cubic metres. Ruchi supplies AI-92 and AI-95 diesel fuel. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had resumed attacks on Russian refineries on Thursday after Trump announced an energy truce that Russia ignored — Kiev reports 76 Russian attacks on energy targets since then. Sunday's bombardment went further, causing widespread disruption. St. Petersburg Governor Alexandr Glebov reported one dead and about ten injured, with five still in hospital. The deceased was killed when debris from a fixed-wing drone fell on his car. A dozen apartment buildings and two private homes were damaged, and residents of some buildings were evacuated to community centres. A drone also hit a bridge, a hospital was affected, and sections of a city motorway were closed. Ukrainian drones damaged a data centre belonging to VKontakte — Russia's version of Facebook — in Leningrad, and a warehouse belonging to e-commerce company Ozon covering almost 80,000 square metres, which also caught fire, according to the Astra news channel. About 20,000 people lost electricity for several hours after damage to the Vostochnaya substation. On Saturday, Putin had ordered the Russian government to rebuild commercial and logistics infrastructure damaged by Ukrainian drones, which in recent weeks had attacked data centres belonging to tech giant Yandex and Russia's largest bank, Sberbank. Authorities restricted operations at Pulkovo Airport for safety reasons. Moscow's main airports have also seen hundreds of flights cancelled or delayed in recent days, with some passengers stranded for up to 40 hours. A plane arriving from Egypt had to land in Finland on Sunday. Russia's Defence Ministry said air defences shot down more than a thousand enemy drones overnight across fifteen regions in the European part of the country and the annexed Crimean peninsula. **Ukraine apologises for drone in Lithuania and Latvia that scrambled NATO jets** Ukraine apologised to Lithuania on Sunday after a drone entered the Baltic country's airspace and crashed in the north. Kiev said the incident may have been caused by Russian electronic warfare diverting the unmanned aircraft. The drone triggered an air alert in Lithuania and Latvia during the attack on St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, prompting NATO fighter jets to take off before dawn. "We regret the incident that occurred this morning in Lithuanian airspace, which may have been caused by Russian electronic countermeasures diverting drones during an operation against legitimate military targets in Russia," Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy wrote on social media platform X. "We apologise for any disruption, risk or concern this may have caused," he added. Ukraine committed to sharing all relevant information with Lithuania to fully clarify the circumstances. Lithuanian Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas said the object was detected by Lithuanian radars at around 03:00 GMT and NATO's air defence mission was activated, scrambling fighter jets from Šiauliai air base to identify it. However, weather conditions prevented visual contact and the object could not be shot down.