St Petersburg drone attack: 1 killed, oil terminal and Ruchi depot on fire in the region's biggest attack in four years

A large Ukrainian drone attack on St Petersburg killed at least one person and injured five overnight into Sunday 18 October, Governor Alexander Beglov said, Al Jazeera reported. Firefighters were fighting blazes at the city's oil terminal, the Ruchi oil depot and industrial warehouses in the Kolpino district, and several homes were hit.

Russia's TASS news agency called it the largest attack on the region in four years.

What was hit

Leningrad region Governor Alexander Drozdenko said 145 drones were shot down over the region. Russia's defence ministry said it brought down 1,015 Ukrainian drones across the country overnight.

Why now

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had attacked Ukraine's energy, oil and gas sector 76 times in the week since US President Donald Trump announced an energy ceasefire, with overnight strikes on substations in the Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi and Odesa regions leaving tens of thousands of families without power. Russian strikes overnight killed two people and injured 12 in Ukraine, he said. He told the Financial Times that Kyiv is "done" with the ceasefire and will resume strikes on Russian refineries.

On Friday Trump signed an order waiving sanctions and tariffs aimed at Russia's energy income. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday it is a 60-day pause to study the effect on the world economy. We covered the waiver in Trump waives tariffs on the biggest buyers of Russian oil.

Why it matters in Pakistan

Attacks on Russian oil terminals, together with record ship attacks around Hormuz, keep crude prices high: Brent touched $110 last week (our markets story). Pakistan imports most of its fuel, so world prices feed into the fortnightly review. PSO's ex-depot Karachi price for petrol is on our petrol price page; work out a trip with the fuel cost calculator.