Ukrainian drones strike Wildberries logistics hubs again, killing 1 in southern Russia
Drones struck logistics hubs run by Wildberries in Russia’s Krasnodar and Stavropol regions overnight, killing one person and injuring 14 others, l...
Ukrainian drones struck logistics hubs run by Wildberries in Russia’s Krasnodar and Stavropol regions overnight, killing one person and injuring 14 others, local officials said on Wednesday. It was the second hit on the Russian online retail giant in four days.
The attacks landed far from the front line, but not far from the war’s widening footprint. Workers were evacuated from the sites in the south-western cities of Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk, while regional officials reported damage at the warehouses and emergency crews moved in.
Wildberries again in the crosshairs
Wildberries is often described as Russia’s Amazon and employs about 48,000 people. Its founder, Tatyana Kim, who is Russia’s wealthiest woman, said workers were evacuated after the overnight strikes on logistics centres in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk.
“There are no words to describe all the feelings and emotions caused by the attacks on ordinary people, on our employees, on us, who are simply doing our jobs,” Kim wrote on Telegram. She added that the company would keep working “for the benefit of people.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the hubs were “involved in providing the Russian army with drone components, navigation equipment and other gear.” Ukraine has said the facilities it targeted inside Russia were being used to support military production. Russian officials have blamed the strikes for deaths and injuries among warehouse workers.
Fresh strikes after deadly attack four days earlier
The overnight hits came four days after Ukraine struck Wildberries warehouses in central Russia, according to Russian officials. That earlier attack killed eight people, making it the deadliest wave of Ukrainian strikes reported inside Russia in more than two years, according to regional officials and Ukrainian acknowledgement of the operation.
In those earlier strikes, seven people died at a distribution centre in Kotovsk in the Tambov region, and another person was killed at a similar facility in Elektrostal in the Moscow region. Russian officials said scores more were wounded. Ukraine said the facilities were hit at distances of more than 500 kilometres and nearly 700 kilometres from the front line.
The latest attack underlines how drone warfare has stretched deeper into Russian territory, with warehouses, logistics hubs and other civilian-linked infrastructure increasingly caught in the blast radius. The choice of target also carries political weight: Wildberries sits at the centre of Russia’s consumer economy, but Ukrainian officials have portrayed its facilities as part of the military supply chain.
Damage, casualties and the wider war
Local officials said one person was killed in the latest strikes and 14 were injured. In Krasnodar, 10 people were hurt, while the other casualties were reported in the Stavropol region, according to the information released by authorities.
The company said employees were taken out of the buildings after the attack. No immediate details were released on the extent of the damage to the logistics hubs, but the repeated targeting of Wildberries warehouses has raised fresh concern over the safety of workers in facilities tied to Russia’s fast-moving online retail network.
Wildberries has grown into a huge name in Russian e-commerce, with warehouses and logistics hubs spread across the country. That scale has now made it a recurring target in the war’s drone campaign. And for the people inside those buildings, the issue is brutally simple. Ordinary work. Sudden fire. No warning.
“There are no words to describe all the feelings and emotions caused by the attacks on ordinary people,” Kim said.
