Ukraine drone barrage kills at least eight in deepest strikes on Russian logistics in two years

Ukrainian drones struck two fulfillment centers operated by Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, and an oil depot in Moscow Oblast overnight on July 18, killing at least eight people and wounding more than 60 in what CNN reported are the most lethal Ukrainian strikes recorded inside Russia in more than two years.

Ukraine has acknowledged carrying out the attacks. President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed the strikes hit three areas of Russian territory in a single overnight operation, according to the Kyiv Independent’s reporting.

“Two major logistics facilities were hit, in the Moscow and Tambov regions, more than 500 and nearly 700 kilometers from the front line,” said Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine (CNN, July 18, 2026).

Zelensky said the two Wildberries logistics centers were being used “to supply sanctioned components for drone production and navigation equipment,” per CNN’s reporting, and separately posted on X that “our long-range sanctions worked across three areas on Russian territory, as well as on our temporarily occupied land and at sea.” That characterization of the warehouses’ military relevance is Ukraine’s own account and has not been independently verified.

Two warehouses, one oil depot, and a maternity ward evacuated

The heavier casualties came at the Wildberries fulfillment center in Kotovsk, Tambov Oblast, roughly 475 kilometers southeast of Moscow, where regional governor Yevgeniy Pervyshov, a Russian government official, said seven people were killed and 25 wounded on the night shift, a figure from Russian regional authorities and not independently verified, according to The Moscow Times, which reported that Pervyshov also said Russian air defenses shot down 28 drones on approach to the region. Pervyshov added that “if they had achieved their goal, the number of civilian casualties could have been much higher.” A second Wildberries facility in Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, a 188,000-square-meter site, also caught fire; Moscow Oblast governor Andrei Vorobyov, likewise a Russian government official, reported one death and 37 wounded, eight seriously, across that strike and a linked one at the nearby Nafto-Service oil depot in Noginsk, again a state figure requiring the same caveat. The oil depot, which the Kyiv Independent reported is used to store and supply fuel and lubricants including for the Russian military, caught fire after being struck, and CBS News reported the resulting blaze forced the evacuation of a nearby maternity hospital as a precaution. Wildberries CEO Tatiana Kim called it “a terrible night” for the company and extended condolences to victims’ families, per Moscow Times.

Part of a widening deep-strike campaign

The Wildberries and Noginsk strikes extend a pattern of Ukrainian long-range drone attacks on Russian rear-area logistics and energy infrastructure that has intensified through 2026, including strikes WeaponSpecs has covered separately on the Omsk and Salavat refineries. Zelensky’s stated distances of roughly 500 to 700 kilometers from the front line are consistent with the operating envelope of Ukraine’s deep-strike drone fleet, which includes the AN-196 Liutyi, a one-way attack drone that open-source reporting on recovered wreckage credits with strikes on Russian energy and military-industrial sites hundreds of kilometers from Ukrainian territory. Neither Zelensky’s July 18 statement nor the outlets covering it named the specific drone type used in the Wildberries and Noginsk strikes, so no system can be confirmed as the platform involved in this particular attack.

Why a retailer’s warehouses became a target

Wildberries operates one of the largest logistics and fulfillment networks in Russia, and Ukraine’s targeting claim, that some facilities store components for sanctioned military-linked production rather than purely consumer goods, would not be the first time a nominally civilian Russian logistics operator has drawn scrutiny over dual-use cargo. The Kyiv Independent noted that “Russian forces have repeatedly used civilian facilities to store military equipment” in past reporting on the war, though Zelensky’s July 18 statement offered no specific evidence for this claim. Whatever the precise cargo, the casualty toll at a facility built around night-shift warehouse labor, not a hardened military site, is what has driven the story’s prominence.

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