Ukrainian drone attacks struck industrial facilities in Russia’s western city of Ryazan overnight Tuesday, causing multiple fires and forcing major online retailer Wildberries to evacuate its local warehouses, regional authorities confirmed Wednesday.
Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov reported that 45 drones were shot down over the region, with falling debris sparking a blaze in an industrial area and damaging a home and a building. Six people were hospitalized with injuries, he said in a statement on Telegram.
The attacks mark an escalation in Ukraine’s campaign to strike deep inside Russian territory, targeting industrial and logistics infrastructure that supports Moscow’s war effort. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s latest strikes hit an oil refinery and logistics center in Ryazan, as well as a site in Russian-occupied Crimea where high-speed boats belonging to the Russian Black Sea Fleet are based.
"Russia must feel that every day of this war will only come at a higher cost for it," Zelenskyy said in a post on X.
The Wildberries logistics network has been particularly hard hit. Drones have damaged at least seven Wildberries warehouses in recent days, destroying roughly 10 percent of the company’s storage capacity. The disruptions have inflicted losses on tens of thousands of small businesses that sell goods and services through the platform, according to the company.
Senior industry sources told Reuters that the Kremlin and state bank VTB may be forced to prop up Wildberries, which is the largest borrower in Russia and central to the government’s plans to spur economic growth as Moscow faces mounting budget pressures from increased military spending and a broader economic slowdown. Denys Shtilerman, co-founder of Ukrainian drone manufacturer Fire Point, described Wildberries as a critical economic target, noting its collapse would have far-reaching consequences for Russia’s financial system.
Russian outlet Kommersant reported that Wildberries is now looking to acquire warehouse space in Kazakhstan following the strikes, as the company is unwilling to lease further warehouse space in Russia due to the high risk of continued Ukrainian attacks.
Separately, a woman was killed and a man injured after missile debris hit an apartment building in the southern Russian city of Taganrog on the Sea of Azov, home to various industrial facilities and a grain terminal, regional governor Yury Slyusar said. In Ukraine’s Kherson region, a man was killed and three others wounded in a Russian drone attack, local authorities reported. Five people, including a child, were also injured in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, where Russia carried out dozens of attacks using drones, aerial bombs and artillery.
The Financial Times reported that Ukraine has shifted its long-range strike campaign against Russian energy infrastructure from broad strikes against oil refineries to targeted strikes on critical components that are hard to replace. Ukrainian drone operators told the FT that energy engineers and industry experts now brief Ukrainian units on which facility components are indispensable and would take the longest to replace, allowing Kyiv to maximize the economic impact of each strike.
Sources: Al Jazeera | The Guardian | Institute for the Study of War
Author: Pulse Of Nations Wire Desk
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