A warehouse east of Moscow belonging to Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries, was set ablaze after being struck by Ukrainian drones overnight, the second such attack in two days. File photo by Stringer/EPA
Aug. 3 (UPI) — A warehouse east of Moscow belonging to Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries, was set ablaze after being struck by Ukrainian drones overnight, the second such attack in two days.
The company confirmed via its Telegram press service early Monday that the logistics center in the town of Khryastovo in Vladimir province, 12 miles southwest of Vladimir, the regional capital, was on fire and had been evacuated.
“Fire crews are working at the scene. Preliminary reports indicate there are no casualties. Logistics operations have been rerouted; the acceptance of deliveries and the dispatch of orders are being handled at other facilities,” the company said.
However, around three hours later the state-run TASS news agency reported three people had been injured in the Wildberries attack, saying it was part of a wider, deadly, airborne assault targeting 10 Russian regions, Crimea and the Black Sea with hundreds of drones.
Sergey Aksyonov, the governor of occupied Crimea in an online update condemned what he called another “barbaric attack by the enemy” overnight that killed three people and injured two others, all civilians.
The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses downed 131 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles over the Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kursk, Lipetsk, Oryol, Smolensk, Tula and Krasnodar Regions between 8:00 p.m. on Sunday and 7:00 a.m. on Monday, Moscow time.
The strike on the Wildberries facility came a day after a blaze at one of the company’s fulfilment centers in Novosemeykino in Samara province, 600 miles southeast of Moscow, after it was hit amid large-scale drone strikes the Ukraine General Staff claimed its forces carried out overnight Saturday and into Sunday.
The attacks caused fires at Engels air base, on the left bank of the Volga River in Saratov province, where Tu-95MS and Tu-160 strategic bombers are stationed, and an oil refinery in the Saratov city. The governor of the region said two people were killed.
The Lyudinovskaya oil depot in Kaluga province to the southwest of Moscow, was also struck, according to the general staff.
Over the past two weeks, Ukrainian forces have repeatedly struck Wildberries’ logistics operations across western and southern Russia.
On July 18, eight employees were killed and more than 60 were injured after warehouse complexes in the Tambov and Moscow regions were attacked.
At least 15 workers at two of the firm’s facilities in the southwest of the country were injured in drone strikes on July 22, according to the company’s CEO and regional officials, and a fulfilment center in Kolyedino was hit and warehouses in Belye Stolby near Moscow were destroyed on July 21.
Kyiv alleges the company forms part of the Russian military’s supply chain, providing it with dual-use products such as two-way radios, body armor and components for drones.
