Ukrainian drones struck an oil terminal in St. Petersburg and set it ablaze on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, hours after President Vladimir Putin opened Russia's marquee economic forum in the same city.

The counterstrike landed as rescuers in Ukraine pulled more bodies from apartment blocks gutted by Russia's largest aerial assault of the war. Authorities raised the toll from the overnight barrage to 22 dead and 138 wounded, with 16 killed in Dnipro and six in Kyiv.

Fire at the forum

The blaze on the Gulf of Finland ignited as Putin took the stage at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, an event the Kremlin promotes as Russia's answer to Davos. The forum, according to NPR, has been overshadowed by the war and by economic stagnation.

Ukraine has tripled its long-range drone strikes into Russia since last fall, from 750 to more than 2,000, with many aimed at refineries, export terminals and defense plants. The campaign has interrupted as much as one-quarter of Russian oil refining capacity, according to PBS NewsHour.

A deeper campaign

Retired U.S. Army Col. Robert Hamilton, president of the Delphi Global Research Center, said Kyiv's strikes target two pillars of Moscow's war machine.

"Ukrainian one is focused on trying to cripple over the long term Russia's war-making capability, its military capability. And the Russian campaign, frankly, is just a terror campaign," Hamilton told PBS NewsHour.

Hamilton said Russian seaborne oil export revenues fell 24 percent in April from March. He cautioned that the U.S. war in Iran is now "providing Russia additional oil revenues that it wouldn't otherwise have."

Bodies in the rubble

In Dnipro, emergency crews pulled the bodies of a 3-year-old child and of a woman and her 8-year-old son from collapsed apartment buildings, officials said. Mayor Borys Filatov declared Wednesday a day of mourning. Twenty minutes later, Filatov said another drone struck a residential building at about 2:40 p.m.

In Kyiv, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said at least 81 people were wounded in the capital. Iryna Salikova, 37, spent the night in a bathtub shielding her 3-year-old daughter.

"Our window was broken. A cobblestone flew into the children's room," Salikova said. "Thank God we're alive. Today we're alive, today we're lucky."

Moscow's account

Russia's Defense Ministry said the overnight bombardment struck military-industrial facilities in seven Ukrainian regions, a characterization Ukraine rejected. Kyiv said residential, energy and civilian infrastructure was hit and did not confirm damage to military sites. The dossier reflects Ukrainian and Western sourcing; independent assessments of damage inside Russia from the St. Petersburg strike were not available.

Putin digs in

Putin signaled no pause. He said Ukraine's May 22 drone attack on a college dormitory in Starobilsk, in Russian-controlled Luhansk, that killed 21 had given the war "a whole new dimension." Ukraine said the site was a Russian drone pilot training center.

Zelenskyy renewed his appeal for Western air defenses as the smoke rose over both capitals.

"All partners together and everyone in Europe must continue working to ensure Ukraine receives air defense missiles, the necessary systems, vital intelligence, and other resources that help save lives," Zelenskyy said.