Ukraine hit a key oil export terminal in St. Petersburg and targeted a major data center in Leningrad early Sunday in one of its largest-ever aerial assaults on Russia.
The Ukrainian attacks, which come amid growing tension between Kyiv and the Trump administration, appear to be direct retaliation for Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure over the past week.
Those Russian attacks came despite President Trump announcing a so-called energy ceasefire between the two sides, a supposed agreement that lasted only a few hours before Russia resumed its strategy of attempting to crush Ukraine’s power generation capacity and other infrastructure.
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Sunday’s Ukrainian attack reportedly involved more than 1,000 drones. One person was killed and five others were wounded in the attack, which sparked fires at the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal and the city’s Ruchi oil depot, according to the region’s governor, Alexander Beglov.
Russian state-run media reported that a logistics center belonging to Russian retailer Ozon and a data center for local tech giant VK were also targeted.
In a series of social media posts, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not directly address the Ukrainian attacks on Russia but seemed to justify them.
“Since the American president announced the energy ceasefire a week ago, Russia has deliberately attacked Ukraine’s energy and oil and gas sectors 76 times,” Mr. Zelenskyy said. “In total, over this past week, the Russians have attacked Ukraine with almost 2,700 attack drones, 1,700 aerial bombs, and 66 missiles, most of them ballistic. The main targets of these strikes are energy facilities. The Russians are trying to cause a blackout.”
The Russia-Ukraine war is now well into its fourth year. Mr. Trump vowed to end the conflict quickly after taking office in January 2025, but his administration has struggled to facilitate even a partial ceasefire, let alone a lasting peace deal.
Separately, Mr. Zelenskyy told reporters Saturday that his country is still struggling to use drone-and-missile interceptors that rely on Starshield, according to English-language media accounts of his remarks.
Starshield is the military platform portion of SpaceX’s satellite network.
Last week, Ukrainian drone operators lost some connection speed after restrictions were imposed on battlefield use of the country’s U.S.-made Starshield communication terminals.
In Washington, lawmakers from both parties have questioned whether the Trump administration ordered those restrictions following public criticism by Mr. Zelenskyy and others of a U.S.-Russia deal to relax sanctions on Russian diesel exports.
A U.S. military official familiar with Starshield’s technical details said the speeds allowed by the network for military use push the equipment’s limitations and data limits are controlled by higher U.S. military headquarters.
Those headquarters manage the technical challenges of providing enough bandwidth with the available satellites to ensure troops have the necessary communications support, the official said, asking to remain anonymous due to the work’s sensitive nature.
The U.S.-Russia diesel deal is at the center of rising tensions. The agreement is designed to ease global energy prices which have skyrocketed because of the U.S.-Iran war.
Over the weekend, Mr. Trump temporarily called off new sanctions that would have increased tariffs on Russian goods, including energy, by up to 500%.
He also waived the bill’s provision to apply tariffs of up to 100% on goods from countries that buy Russian energy, such as China and India.
• John T. Seward and George Caldwell contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
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