Ukrainian drones hit Russian oil depot and Wildberries warehouses

Ukrainian drones struck targets deep inside Russia on Saturday, hitting an oil depot and warehouses used by the online retailer Wildberries, with regional officials reporting deaths and dozens of injuries. The Independent reported that one warehouse in the Tambov region was hit and that another facility near Moscow caught fire, while a fuel depot in the Moscow region burned after a drone strike that prompted evacuations of a maternity hospital and a residential building. Russia’s defence ministry said it intercepted hundreds of drones across multiple regions overnight.

The choice of targets suggests a campaign that treats logistics as a battlefield in its own right. Warehouses, depots and rail links are where consumer supply chains and military procurement overlap: the same trucks, loading bays and night shifts that keep retail deliveries moving can also move parts, fuel and equipment. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the long-range strikes hit “significant logistical facilities” that supplied components used for drone and navigation equipment production, according to The Independent.

For Russia, the immediate problem is not only the damage from any single strike but the requirement to defend a very large rear area. A country that can claim to have intercepted 379 drones still has to mobilise air defences, emergency services and local administrations across 19 regions, plus occupied Crimea and maritime approaches, The Independent reported. That disperses attention and resources and creates recurring disruption costs—evacuations, shutdowns, rerouted traffic, halted shifts—that are hard to measure but easy for households and businesses to feel.

For Ukraine, long-range drone warfare is one of the few tools that can reach beyond the front line without the manpower required for ground offensives. It also allows Kyiv to push the war into places where the Kremlin has tried to preserve normality. Fires at commercial warehouses are visible, local and politically awkward, even when the official messaging emphasises interception rates.

The strikes also complicate Russia’s maritime logistics. Ukraine’s military said it hit vessels and equipment used to transport oil, fuel and military cargo in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, and reported another attack on a patrol ship in Kerch, The Independent wrote.

In Tambov, seven night-shift workers were reported killed at the warehouse that was struck, while the fire at the warehouse near Moscow sent large plumes of smoke into the air.