Ukrainian drones strike across Russia, hitting refineries, Wildberries warehouse
July 29 (Reuters) – Ukrainian drones hit the Russian cities of Perm, Ryazan and Taganrog, as well as oil refineries and logistics facilities on the Crimean peninsula overnight; Wildberries, the country’s largest online retailer, evacuated its Ryazan warehouse.
While Ukraine’s air defenses have diminished in the face of interceptors such as Patriot missiles, leaving it more vulnerable to Russian attacks, its own production of deep-strike drones has outpaced Russia, allowing it to hit Russian oil refineries and infrastructure and cause fuel shortages over 11 time periods.
Drone attacks have damaged at least seven Wildberries warehouses in the past few days, destroying about 10% of the company’s storage capacity and causing losses to tens of thousands of small businesses that sell goods and services through the platform, according to the company and local officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a statement that his forces hit oil refineries in Perm and Ryazan, a logistics center in Ryazan, an export terminal and military facility in the Rostov region, as well as a naval base in Crimea.
Local Russian officials confirmed the attacks.
RYAZAN WILD FRUITS WAREHOUSE BURNED
In Ryazan, south of Moscow and about 500 km (310 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory, Governor Pavel Malkov said industrial facilities caught fire and six people sought medical help. Wildberries said its Ryazan plant was evacuated and stopped accepting deliveries of goods. Video footage on social media, verified by Reuters, showed a massive fire at Wildberries’ Ryazan facility.
Russian business newspaper Kommersant reported on Wednesday that Wildberries was seeking 100,000 square feet of storage space in neighboring Kazakhstan to protect its goods from Ukrainian attacks.
In the city of Perm in the Urals, about 1,600 kilometers away from the Ukrainian-controlled region, Governor Dmitry Makhonin said that Ukrainian drones hit an industrial facility but did not cause any casualties. He did not give the name of the facility.
In the southern Rostov region, Governor Yuri Slyusar said a woman was killed and a man was injured when missile fragments hit an apartment building that houses several industrial facilities and a grain terminal in the port city of Taganrog on the Sea of Azov.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-backed governor of the Crimean peninsula, which Russia captured from Ukraine in 2014, said that two people were killed and five people were injured in drone attacks throughout the night.
According to local officials’ statement on Telegram, one person was killed and three others were injured in the attack by a Russian drone on the city of Kherson on the Ukrainian side of the front line.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that unmanned aerial vehicles hit two ships carrying weapons and military equipment east of the Ukrainian port of Odesa.
Ukraine and Russia have increased their attacks on ships in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov in recent weeks, leading to a decrease in oil and grain supplies in the region.
Reuters could not independently verify all reports. Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
(Reporting by Jekaterīna Golubkova in Tokyo and Felix Light in Almaty; Editing by Kate Mayberry, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Hugh Lawson)
