At night on January 18, several Ukrainian drones hit an oil depot in the Russian city of St. Petersburg. To reach their target, the unmanned aerial vehicles covered a distance of 1250 kilometers, announced Oleksandr Kamyshin, Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine, during a discussion at Ukraine House in Davos.
“We can manufacture anything from small FPV drones that cost US$350 to the kind of munitions that traveled all the way to St Petersburg last night. This munition traversed 1,250 kilometers last night before striking its target. Now, we can manufacture more of those munitions. An asymmetric war requires countless drones. I’m sure that this year we will see more incidents like this one,” Kamyshin said.
The attack was a special operation by the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, Ukrainian Pravda‘s source in the Defence Intelligence shared. “This is a Defense Intelligence operation involving modern Ukrainian assets. Data collection continues, and there are confirmed strikes on targets. Now, military facilities in St Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast are within reach of Ukrainian forces.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense has also acknowledged that drones attacked the Leningrad Oblast of Russia. Occupiers claimed to have successfully shot down the unmanned aerial vehicles. However, the Telegram channel Astra reports that the UAV crashed and exploded on the territory of the St Petersburg Oil Terminal.
The targeted oil terminal is the largest in Russia for the transshipment of petroleum products in the Baltic region.
Ukrainian combat UAVs have, for the first time, covered such a significant distance since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. “If the Ukrainian industry successfully ramps up (or has already ramped up) mass production of long-range attack drones, it could pose a serious challenge to the Russian air defense system. Russia has many critical targets, and protecting each one with air defense systems might not be sufficient,” writes BBC Ukraine military analyst Illia Abishev.
Cover: delta.news
