Ukrainian drone attacks struck industrial facilities in Russia’s western city of Ryazan overnight Tuesday, igniting multiple fires and forcing major online retailer Wildberries to evacuate its local warehouses, authorities confirmed.
Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov said air defense systems intercepted 45 drones over the region, but falling debris sparked a blaze in an industrial area and damaged a residential building. Six people were hospitalized with injuries, Malkov wrote on Telegram.
The strikes are part of Ukraine’s escalating campaign to hit Russian industrial and logistics infrastructure, which Kyiv says helps supply Moscow’s military. Drones have damaged at least seven Wildberries warehouses in recent days, destroying roughly 10 percent of the company’s storage capacity and disrupting tens of thousands of small businesses that sell through the platform.
Separately, a woman was killed and a man injured when missile debris struck an apartment block in Taganrog, a southern Russian port city on the Sea of Azov that hosts industrial facilities and a grain terminal, regional Governor Yury Slyusar reported.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its own drones struck two vessels carrying weapons and military equipment east of the Ukrainian port of Odesa. Both Ukraine and Russia have intensified attacks on shipping in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov in recent weeks, contributing to a decline in oil and grain shipments from the region.
In Ukraine’s Kherson region, one man was killed and three others wounded in a Russian drone attack, local officials said. Five people, including a child, were also injured in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Russia launched dozens of strikes using drones, aerial bombs and artillery.
Ukraine’s newly appointed acting Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said in an interview Wednesday that Kyiv cannot match Russia’s military output “punch for punch” and must instead fight asymmetrically, conserving resources while targeting Moscow’s supply chains.
The Ryazan attack comes just a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met US President Donald Trump in Washington, where the two discussed producing Patriot missile interceptors in Ukraine and reviving peace talks with Russia. The meeting underscored Ukraine’s dual-track strategy of seeking diplomatic solutions while intensifying strikes on Russian territory.
The Wildberries warehouses targeted in recent days are spread across multiple Russian regions, and the company has acknowledged significant disruption to its logistics network. For many Russian small businesses, the platform serves as a primary sales channel, and the warehouse closures have triggered supply chain bottlenecks.
Analysts say Ukraine’s long-range strike campaign is designed to impose mounting costs on the Russian economy and military supply lines, even as Kyiv struggles to match Russia’s artillery and manpower advantage on the front lines.