Ukrainian drone strikes in Russia targeted two commercial warehouses in the western part of the country on Saturday, leaving at least eight people dead and dozens wounded, local officials confirmed, according to Al Jazeera and Reuters. The coordinated aerial assault represents a significant expansion of Kyiv`s tactical campaign against major economic and supply chain infrastructure located deep inside Russian territory.
Tambov Governor Evgeniy Pervyshov announced on Saturday that an overnight attack on the town of Kotovsk struck a major logistics center owned by Wildberries, which is widely recognized as the largest online retailer in Russia. Seven night-shift employees were killed instantly when the unmanned aerial vehicles struck the facility. The governor added that another 25 people were wounded during the incident, including several individuals who remain in critical condition due to severe shrapnel injuries. Russian air defense systems reportedly intercepted 28 drones in the area, preventing a potentially higher civilian casualty count.
A separate drone strike occurred in Elektrostal, a city located in the western Moscow region, hitting another Wildberries storage facility. Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov confirmed that the assault killed at least one person and left 37 others injured. In a related development within the same region, an additional drone attack ignited a massive fire at a prominent oil depot in Noginsk, wounding two people. Foreign correspondents reporting from Moscow stated that these devastating Ukrainian drone strikes in Russia represent the highest death and injury toll inflicted by Ukraine within Russian territory over the last three years.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released a statement on social media confirming the operations, characterizing the two Wildberries locations as significant logistics facilities. According to Zelensky, these civilian infrastructure buildings were actively being utilized by Moscow to circumvent international trade restrictions and ensure the steady supply of sanctioned components required for military drone production and navigation equipment. The Ukrainian leader also noted that separate medium-range strikes had successfully hit secondary targets located across the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
What remains unclear is the exact extent to which the destruction of these retail logistics hubs will impair the operational capabilities of the Russian military on the front lines. Ukraine has deliberately stepped up its long-range drone campaign over recent months to starve the Russian military apparatus of essential energy and hardware. By systematically targeting distribution networks and fuel storage depots, Kyiv aims to directly undermine the economic and industrial capacity of Moscow to sustain a full-scale war that has now entered its fifth year.
The economic significance of Wildberries within the Russian domestic market makes it an impactful target for Ukrainian planners seeking to bring the reality of the war closer to the Russian populace. As both nations continue to trade heavy blows using increasingly sophisticated unmanned aviation technology, the focus of the conflict has steadily expanded from immediate border battlefields to vital corporate and energy assets deep inside sovereign territories.
