Ukrainian drones hit Russian warehouses, killing five in overnight strikes

Ukrainian drones struck three warehouses across Russia overnight, killing five people and widening a campaign that has pushed the war deep into Russian logistics and civilian infrastructure, local officials said. One of the hardest-hit sites was a warehouse close to Moscow, where the regional governor said at least five people were killed and 10 more injured.

The strikes also reached beyond the capital region. A warehouse facility near St Petersburg was hit, and in the Tver region a Wildberries logistics warehouse in the village of Emmaus was partially damaged by drone fragments. Wildberries, Russia’s largest online marketplace and often described as the country’s Amazon, has emerged as a recurring target because its warehouses sit at the center of domestic distribution networks that keep consumer goods moving across a vast country.

The repeated attacks have created direct operational costs for the company. Wildberries said on Aug. 3 that a warehouse fire in the Vladimir region forced staff to evacuate and led the company to reroute logistics operations. Ukrainian strikes on other Wildberries warehouses were also reported on July 24 and July 30, making the latest overnight damage the third round in less than two weeks. Wildberries founder Tatyana Kim called the attacks “acts of terrorism” in comments on July 31, while Russian authorities were later exploring state support for the company after the repeated drone strikes.

The pattern matters far beyond one retailer. Warehouses are not only storage sites, they are nodes in Russia’s supply chain, linking imports, online orders and regional distribution. Hitting them forces evacuations, interrupts deliveries and adds pressure to prices, insurance costs and transport schedules, especially when sites are close to major population centers such as Moscow and St Petersburg. The civilian deaths in the Moscow-region strike also underscore the escalation risk as Ukraine extends the war to targets far from the front line.

Russian officials have continued to describe damage and casualty tolls on Telegram as the overnight attacks spread across multiple regions. In the same period, Russian strikes on Ukraine killed at least one person, keeping both sides locked in an exchange that is now striking logistics assets as well as military positions.