{"id":431571,"date":"2026-10-18T23:07:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T23:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/431571\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T23:07:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T23:07:22","slug":"ukraine-launches-more-than-1000-drones-at-russia-as-spat-between-trump-and-zelenskyy-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/431571\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine launches more than 1,000 drones at Russia as spat between Trump and Zelenskyy continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian strikes set an oil export terminal and a depot ablaze in St. Petersburg on Sunday as Kyiv launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia<\/a> in one of its largest aerial attacks of the war.<\/p>\n

The strikes came as tensions between Kyiv and Washington<\/a> deepened, with U.S. President Donald Trump criticizing Kyiv\u2019s attacks on Russian oil infrastructure and the prospect of further U.S. sanctions against Moscow still uncertain.<\/p>\n

Trump said Sunday that he decided to hold off on implementing new sanctions on Russia because he doesn\u2019t \u201cwant to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a social media post, the U.S. president defended his Friday order to issue a waiver to prevent new sanctions from being placed on Moscow from bipartisan criticism that he was favoring Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s interests over those of Ukraine. Trump said he believed new sanctions would undermine negotiations to bring about a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can sign it later, or any time that I want!\u201d Trump added of the sanctions.<\/p>\n

Trump also lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been critical of Trump\u2019s recent outreach to Putin, for launching strikes on Russian energy infrastructure during the conflict, claiming Zelenskyy \u201cdoesn\u2019t want to end this war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy: Waiving sanctions strengthens Russia <\/p>\n

Speaking on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d earlier on Sunday, Zelenskyy said waiving sanctions against Russia would strengthen Putin\u2019s war effort. He also said U.S.-Ukraine intelligence sharing had resumed after being \u201cblocked for some period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy said that while he trusted Trump, siding with Moscow would be a tragedy and a \u201chistoric mistake\u201d for Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to forget what\u2019s going on. But we can\u2019t give this possibility to forget, or to change reality, or to change the truth,\u201d Zelenskyy said. \u201cWe can\u2019t compare me and Putin. He\u2019s (an) aggressor. He occupied us. He killed adults and children, his soldiers. He\u2019s a terrorist. And that\u2019s why I hope that President Trump will be very clear with this position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later Sunday, Zelenskyy said on social media that he had spoken with U.S. presidential envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about the results of an Oct. 9 meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian negotiating teams in Miami, as well as \u201cnext steps in diplomacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two killed as Russia and Ukraine trade blows<\/p>\n

One person was killed and five others were wounded in the St. Petersburg attack, which sparked fires at the Petersburg Oil Terminal and the city\u2019s Ruchi oil depot, local Gov. Alexander Beglov said. A logistics center belonging to Russian retailer Ozon and a data center operated by Russian tech giant VK were also targeted, the companies confirmed.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry said Sunday that its forces had destroyed 1,015 Ukrainian drones over 15 Russian regions, the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the Black Sea.<\/p>\n

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state news agency Tass that Kyiv was \u201cresisting\u201d Moscow\u2019s invasion but could not \u201cchange the current course of events.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, a woman was killed and a 6-year-old girl was among at least two other people wounded in two Russian attacks on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, local officials said Sunday. <\/p>\n

Russia continues energy attacks, Kyiv says<\/p>\n

Trump announced on Oct. 11 that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an \u201cenergy ceasefire\u201d in the 4\u00bd-year-old war<\/a>, but offered no details. Kyiv reported Russian attacks on energy sites continued<\/a> after Trump’s announcement, and on Thursday said it had resumed strikes on Russian oil facilities after a three-day pause.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy wrote on X on Sunday that Russia had attacked Ukraine\u2019s energy, oil and gas sectors 76 times in the week since Trump\u2019s announcement. The Ukrainian government initially said it was observing the ceasefire.<\/p>\n

Energy facilities in four Ukrainian regions were struck overnight, leaving tens of thousands of families without power, he said, accusing Russia of trying to cause a blackout.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica should see that Russia is not taking any reciprocal steps in response to sanctions relief or agreements. On the contrary, they take every signal of an opportunity to make money as proof that their bet on war is paying off and they can keep fighting,\u201d the Ukrainian president wrote.<\/p>\n

Ukraine apology to Lithuania over drone alert<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry apologized on Sunday after a drone entered Lithuania\u2019s airspace, prompting authorities to issue an air raid warning.<\/p>\n

Russian electronic warfare may have diverted the drone during a Ukrainian operation against legitimate military targets in Russia, ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Lithuanian authorities urged residents in two northern counties along the Latvian border to take cover early Sunday because of a possible drone incursion, public broadcaster LRT reported.<\/p>\n

A drone entered the northern Pasvalys region and damaged a moving car, LRT said, citing Lithuania\u2019s National Crisis Management Center. No injuries were reported.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow the AP\u2019s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/russia-ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukrainian strikes set an oil export terminal and a depot ablaze in St. Petersburg on Sunday as Kyiv…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[23628,169308,34899,26757,624,477,103010,99,5769,169315,84402,202,204,203,199,201,200,38655,10645],"class_list":["post-431571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-a","tag-drone-warfare","tag-drones","tag-energy-industry","tag-fires","tag-general-news","tag-oil-and-gas-industry","tag-politics","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-russia-ukraine-war-energy-diesel-trump","tag-sanctions-and-embargoes","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}