UPDATE - Fire engulfs gas terminal in Russia’s Leningrad region

UPDATES WITH MEDIA REPORT ON UKRAINE'S SECURITY SERVICE BEING BEHIND THE FIRE

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) – A fire broke out early Sunday at a gas terminal operated by Novatek, Russia's second-largest natural gas producer, in the port city of Ust-Luga in the country’s Leningrad region.

“There were no casualties as a result of the fire at the Novatek terminal in the port of Ust-Luga. The personnel were evacuated,” Leningrad Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said on Telegram.

Drozdenko further said that teams from Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry and local firefighters were involved in extinguishing the fire at the terminal.

“Rescuers reported localizing the fire at the Novatek terminal in the port of Ust-Luga,” Drozdenko later said in a separate post.

Neither Drozdenko nor other officials have yet commented on the reason behind the fire.

The RBC-Ukraine news agency, citing unnamed security department sources, claimed that the fire at the gas terminal was caused by a drone attack carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Kyiv has yet to officially accept responsibility for the attack.

Novatek's Ust-Luga complex processes gas condensate into light and heavy naphtha, jet fuel, ship fuel component (fuel oil), and gasoil, and ships them to international markets through the Baltic Sea.