ELEKTROSTAL, Russia — A massive overnight drone assault launched by Ukrainian forces has heavily damaged a major logistics hub belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, located in Elektrostal, just 50 kilometers east of Moscow. The precision strike ignited a catastrophic fire at the facility, marking another deep aerial bombardment against critical infrastructure inside Russian territory.

The Elektrostal complex, measuring roughly 188,000 square meters, is recognized as Wildberries’ second-largest logistics center by order-processing volume.

According to reports from local authorities and independent monitoring outlets, the strike occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning. The 1st Separate Unmanned Systems Center of the Ukrainian Defense Forces claimed responsibility for the operation, deployed as part of a highly coordinated wave of long-range drones targeting Russian rear logistics.

Eyewitness footage circulating online showed violent explosions followed by a raging inferno that tore through the vast facility. Plumes of thick black smoke were visible up to 50 kilometers away as day broke. Emergency crews rushed to the scene to engage in defensive firefighting operations, while Wildberries executives confirmed that staff on the shift were evacuated as the facility burned. Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov confirmed that drone debris also impacted a nearby kindergarten, sparking a separate localized fire that was later extinguished.

The attack on Elektrostal was part of a larger, synchronized Ukrainian campaign that simultaneously struck a second massive Wildberries fulfillment center in Kotovsk, located in the Tambov region roughly 475 kilometers southeast of Moscow.

The dual drone strikes resulted in a significant human toll across both targeted regions. In the Tambov Region, night-shift workers bore the brunt of the assault in Kotovsk, where Governor Yevgeny Pervyshov confirmed that seven employees died on the spot and 25 others were injured. Meanwhile, in the Moscow Region, Governor Vorobyov reported 37 total wounds from the wider regional strikes, with at least 24 of those injuries localized directly to the Elektrostal warehouse, where one individual later succumbed to their injuries in the hospital.

Wildberries CEO and co-founder Tatyana Kim issued a statement calling it a "terrible night" for the company and the country, offering condolences to the families of the victims.

While Wildberries functions primarily as the Russian equivalent to Amazon, the marketplace has faced scrutiny for hosting commercial advertisements of military equipment—such as body armor, tactical gear, and drone accessories—earmarked for Russia's war effort.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy explicitly defended the targeting of these commercial giants, revealing that the facilities were being actively utilized by the Russian military to bypass international sanctions.

"These facilities were used by the aggressor to supply sanctioned components for the production of drones and navigation equipment," Zelenskyy stated in an official brief. He emphasized that the long-range operations were a direct response to continuous Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its air defense units intercepted 379 drones across 19 regions overnight. However, the sheer volume of the deployment allowed multiple strike drones to slip through the dragnet, successfully paralyzing two of the most critical node points in Russia's domestic consumer supply chain.