An explosion at a major gas export terminal near the city of St Petersburg in Russia was carried out by Ukrainian drones, BBC News has been told.
The blast caused a large fire at the Ust-Luga terminal, but no injuries, Russian officials said.
An official source in Kyiv said the “special operation” of the SBU security service masterminded the attack, with drones that worked “on target”.
Both Russia and Ukraine have used drones in the current conflict.
Russia launched its full-scale of invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago, but has made little progress in recent months.
Regarding the explosion near St Petersburg, regional governor Alexander Drozdenko said a “high alert regime” was in place after the incident at the terminal of gas producer Novatek, in Ust-Luga on the Gulf of Finland. He shared a video of what appeared to be a large fire.
St Petersburg isn’t that far from the border so it’s not that surprising. I think they’ve probably been within weapons range since the beginning but Ukraine has held off on attacking them, but there’s not much risk of escalation at this point (what Russia going to do), so why not right?
Is 1000km (621 Miles) not considered that far for a drone or am I misunderstanding something?
I don’t know where you’re measuring from with that. But if you look on the map send Petersburg is practically in Scandinavia.
Are Ukraine flying drones from other countries? I may be out of the loop but I figured they’d be flying them from their own territory only.
Edit: p.s. I was making a very rough estimate from Ukraine’s closest border (I think)
Depends. Don’t try at home! Keep your drones in line of sight, which probably means much less than 1000km.