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Russia said that drones were heard over Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk during the night of 22 July and accused Ukraine of targeting Wildberries warehouses for the second time in a week. According to Russian officials and the company, fires broke out at warehouse sites in the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions.
Wildberries founder Tatyana Kim said employees had been evacuated in advance but that 15 people were injured – 10 in Krasnodar and five in Nevinnomyssk. She said several employees were taken to hospital, while others were treated at the scene.
Regional authorities declared a local state of emergency, saying the fires were extensive. Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said helicopters had been deployed to help extinguish the blaze.
Why Wildberries?
Kyiv has not officially commented on the reported attacks. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously defended strikes on facilities that Ukraine says are used to support Russia’s military, including warehouses alleged to store components for drone production and navigation equipment.
Ukraine has argued that such logistics centres form part of supply chains supporting Russia’s war effort. Russia rejects such claims.
Wildberries is one of Russia’s largest e-commerce companies. According to the company and Russian media, the reported strikes on its logistics centres disrupted operations, with thousands of sellers losing stock, tens of thousands of orders cancelled and delivery delays affecting customers. Euronews could not independently verify those figures.
According to Wildberries, employees were evacuated before the attacks. However, social media posts and messages in trade union chats alleged that some workers were not allowed to leave the premises in time. Those claims have not been independently verified.
The company said it had set up a hotline for relatives. It also said the families of those killed would receive compensation, while compensation for sellers whose goods were destroyed had yet to be resolved. Estimates circulating in Russian media that the losses could rival the company’s annual profit have not been independently verified.
A series of strikes
The reported attack on 22 July was the latest in a series of strikes that Russian authorities say have targeted Wildberries infrastructure. Several days earlier, drones struck warehouses in Elektrostal and Kotovsk, killing eight people and injuring dozens. Authorities said one of the company’s largest logistics hubs, covering more than 350,000 square metres, was put out of operation.
In Krasnodar, debris from intercepted drones damaged two apartment buildings and two private homes in the stanitsa of Dinskaya.
In Armavir, officials said a drone struck an oil depot, triggering a fire that spread across about 800 square metres. One person was reportedly killed.
During the night of 22 July, Russia continued its strikes on Ukrainian territory, using ballistic missiles and a large swarm of attack drones.
According to Ukrainian authorities, direct hits were recorded in Kryvyi Rih, where an industrial site was damaged. In Zaporizhzhia, workshops at an engineering plant were destroyed. In Mykolaiv, a strike hit shipbuilding facilities, while in Ternopil a fuel depot caught fire.
In the Lviv region, a logistics hub was damaged. In the Poltava and Cherkasy regions, facilities linked to drone repairs and ammunition storage were also hit.
Debris from downed drones fell in residential areas of the Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, causing localised damage to public utility infrastructure.