The incident comes amid reports of yet another Ukrainian drone raid on Russian infrastructure
A fire has erupted at the export terminal of Novatek, Russia’s second-largest natural gas producer, the governor of Leningrad region Alexander Drozdenko confirmed early Sunday morning.
There were no casualties reported as a result of the blaze in the commercial Baltic sea port of Ust-Luga.
Authorities have placed Kingiseppsky district on high alert and conducted the evacuation of the port terminal. Firefighters have been deployed and first responders have been dispatched to the scene, according to the district head Yuri Zapalatsky.
Although the cause of the fire remains unknown, the residents of the nearby cities said that they heard sounds of the UAVs preceding the explosion. Local newspaper Fontanka reported that around the time of the incident the St. Petersburg airport Pulkovo introduced the so-called Kovyor (carpet) mode, when aircraft departures and landings are prohibited due to external danger.
Ust-Luga is the biggest port in the Baltic Sea, located approximately 170 kilometers from St. Petersburg and 35 kilometers from the Estonian border. There are twelve terminals, designed to handle various products including oil and gas, fertilizers, LNG as well as timber, and grains.
Earlier this week, the Russian military thwarted an attempted Ukrainian drone attack over the St. Petersburg area, which according to the local media, targeted an oil terminal. A propeller-driven aircraft loaded with 3kg of explosives was shot down in the vicinity of the city’s Crude Oil Loading Terminal Stock Company.
Ukraine has regularly targeted infrastructure in Russian border regions with drone and missile strikes, although attacks on targets as far away as Leningrad Region – around 1,000km from the Ukrainian border – are rarer.
On Saturday night and Sunday evening, Russian air defense systems intercepted multiple UAVs over the Smolensk and Tula regions, but authorities have yet to confirm the cause of the incident in Ust Luga.
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