Ukrainian long-range drones have struck a key warehouse operated by Russia’s largest online retailer for the second time in a little over a month, triggering a huge blaze that left the site completely destroyed, local officials said Wednesday.
The same depot, located in the Tambov region southeast of Moscow and hundreds of kilometers from Ukraine’s border, was previously hit by Ukrainian forces on July 18. That strike killed seven people and marked the beginning of a wider drone campaign targeting facilities tied to Wildberries, Russia’s dominant e-commerce company, often likened to Amazon because of its scale and influence.
Ukraine’s rapidly expanding long-range drone program, developed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, has enabled Kyiv to reach deep inside Russian territory. In recent weeks, dozens of Wildberries-linked sites have reportedly been hit. Ukrainian officials say the retailer sells items that include equipment and technical parts used by Russia’s military, while the strikes also support Kyiv’s broader strategy of disrupting Russia’s economy and bringing the war’s consequences closer to communities far from the battlefield.
Russia, for its part, has continued to pound Ukrainian cities and infrastructure with ballistic and cruise missiles, heavy glide bombs and jet-powered drones, attacks that have killed thousands of civilians since the war began.
Ukraine has increasingly launched large waves of drones toward Russia on an almost nightly basis, in an effort to stretch and overwhelm Moscow’s air defenses. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces intercepted 426 Ukrainian drones overnight across 15 Russian regions as well as Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed.
Wildberries acknowledged that its Tambov region depot had been hit overnight and confirmed that a fire broke out, adding that the site was evacuated. The company did not provide further details about the scale of the destruction.
Tambov Gov. Yevgeny Pervyshov said the fire wiped out the logistics center entirely and left two people injured: a 19-year-old man who sustained a concussion and a 49-year-old woman who suffered a broken finger.
In a separate incident, two people were killed and two more were injured in Russia’s Lipetsk region, south of Moscow, after a drone crashed into a house and set it on fire, regional Gov. Igor Artamonov said.
Ukraine has also targeted Russian oil facilities that are the backbone of the country’s economy. Russia is one of the world’s largest energy producers.
Unconfirmed reports said that an oil refinery in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region was on fire Wednesday. The region has repeatedly been targeted by Ukraine. Local Governor Gleb Nikitin confirmed the attack and said that an unspecified “industrial facility” sustained damage, but didn’t provide any details about that facility.
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