The Leningrad Region was targeted by more than 50 UAVs overnight, Aleksandr Drozdenko has said
A blaze erupted at the key Russian Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga after a Ukrainian drone strike, Leningrad Region Aleksandr Drozdenko has said.
The northwestern region, which surrounds Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg, was targeted by 54 UAVs overnight, Drozdenko wrote in a post on Telegram on Friday morning.
The fire at the port of Ust-Luga was extinguished after several hours. There were no deaths or injuries, the governor wrote.
The port area, which is home to a major gas-processing complex, as well as Europe’s largest oil terminal specializing in the transshipment of petroleum products from rail to sea tankers, has been targeted by Ukraine on a number of occasions in recent months.
St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport said that it had been forced to reschedule some flights due to aerial incursions.
Also on Friday, Ukraine struck a residential building in the city of Bryansk in western Russia, killing one person and injuring at least six others, according to Bryansk Region’s acting governor, Egor Kovalchuk.
Another person was wounded in a drone attack in the village of Snytkino, Kovalchuk added.
The Defense Ministry in Moscow said that a total of 553 Ukrainian UAVs were shot down or intercepted by electronic warfare means above 19 Russian regions overnight.
Moscow has condemned Ukrainian drone strikes on infrastructure and residential areas inside Russia as terrorist attacks aimed at compensating for Kiev’s setbacks on the battlefield where Russian forces have continued their steady advance.
Russia has responded by intensifying long-range missile and drone strikes against Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities and logistics infrastructure. Moscow maintains that it does not target civilians and that its strikes are directed solely at military targets and infrastructure supporting Kiev’s forces.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, a total of 14 such strikes took place over the past week, hitting weapons and drones production plants, logistics centers, fuel, energy and transport infrastructure, military airfields and ports where cargo used by Kiev’s troops is being unloaded and stored.
Russian forces also targeted 15 oceangoing vessels operating in the interests of the Ukrainian military, including a tanker, seven dry cargo ships, two tugboats, and five patrol boats, it added.
