Drones Strike VKontakte Data Center and Oil Terminal in Russia’s Leningrad Region

Ukrainian strike drones attacked the VKontakte data center and the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal on October 18.

Leningrad Region Governor Alexander Drozdenko reported the attacks.

A bridge and port infrastructure in St. Petersburg were also hit.

The VK social network’s data center is located in the village of Novosergiyevka, in the Vsevolozhsk District of the Leningrad Region, near St. Petersburg.

The facility houses four data halls, 640 server racks, and more than 20,000 servers. The data center is located next to the330 kV Vostochnaya substation, which was also targeted in the attack.

As a result, some residents were left without electricity. Separately, in 2025, Russian authorities approved the construction of a new M100 data center in Novosergiyevka.

Between 3:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., a significant number of users reported outages affecting the social network.

The attack also targeted the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal. The governor of St. Petersburg officially confirmed that the terminal had been hit. However, authorities did not report any damage to the Ruchyi oil depot.

The St. Petersburg Oil Terminal receives, stores, and transfers liquid cargo, including petroleum products. Its tank farm has a total capacity of 442,000 cubic meters and consists of 32 storage tanks.

The Ruchyi oil depot is a separate facility in St. Petersburg designed to store and distribute motor fuel. Its tank farm consists of 36 storage tanks with a total capacity of approximately 73,900 cubic meters.

According to photos and videos shared by local residents, the fire at the oil terminal was still burning as of 7:30 a.m.

Drones also targeted the cable-stayed bridge over the Korabelny Fairway, but the extent of the damage to the structure remains unknown.