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Saturday, Jul 18, 2026

Ukrainian Drone Barrage Kills Eight and Strikes Russian Logistics Network

Warehouses operated by Russia's largest online retailer burned in coordinated attacks that Kyiv said targeted supply routes for drone and navigation components.
Ukraine's expanding long-range drone campaign struck logistics, fuel and transport infrastructure across Russia overnight, killing eight people and injuring more than sixty.

The deadliest attack hit a Wildberries distribution complex in Kotovsk, in the Tambov region, where seven employees working the night shift were killed and twenty-five others were wounded.

Another injured person later died in hospital after separate strikes in the Moscow region.

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The attacks reached two large warehouses operated by Wildberries, Russia's dominant online retailer: the Kotovsk complex and another facility in Elektrostal, roughly fifty kilometers east of Moscow.

Both buildings caught fire.

Russian officials described the sites as civilian commercial properties, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said they were significant logistics facilities used to obtain sanctioned components for producing drones and navigation equipment.

That military function has been asserted by Kyiv but has not been independently demonstrated.

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The broader operation also targeted an oil depot in Noginsk, north of Elektrostal.

The strike ignited a fire and prompted authorities to evacuate a nearby maternity hospital and residential building as a precaution.

Two people were injured in the area.

Falling drone debris separately struck a kindergarten in Elektrostal, causing a blaze that emergency crews extinguished, while a residential building in Vladimir was damaged without reported casualties.

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Tambov Governor Yevgeny Pervyshov said air defenses intercepted twenty-eight additional drones before they reached their objectives, arguing that the civilian toll could otherwise have been considerably higher.

Across the full overnight assault, Russia's Defense Ministry claimed that air defenses destroyed three hundred seventy-nine Ukrainian drones over nineteen regions, occupied Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.

That total has not been independently verified.

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The scale of the barrage reflects Ukraine's effort to disrupt the industrial and logistical systems supporting Russia's invasion rather than confining attacks to positions near the front.

Ukrainian forces also reported strikes on vessels carrying oil, fuel and military cargo, a Russian patrol ship and a railway bridge in occupied Luhansk.

Russia has repeatedly described Ukrainian attacks inside its territory as terrorism, particularly when civilians or commercial facilities are hit, while Kyiv presents the campaign as a response to Moscow's continuing bombardment of Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

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Wildberries founder Tatyana Kim called it a terrible night for Russia and the company and expressed condolences to the victims' families.

The fire at the Kotovsk warehouse was extinguished, while emergency and damage-assessment operations continued at the affected facilities in the Moscow region.

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