Ukrainian long-range drones struck warehouses of Russia's biggest online retailer overnight and into the morning of 24 July, hitting occupied Crimea and Russia's second-largest city, according to Ukrainian and Russian monitoring channels. Fires broke out at Wildberries logistics sites, and the company suspended operations near St. Petersburg while evacuating its sorting center in occupied Simferopol. Another—less successful—strike occured in Tver. Russia scrambled fighter jets and claimed dozens of drones downed, but the warehouses burned.

Fires from occupied Crimea to the Baltic coast

The night's strikes began over occupied Simferopol. The monitoring Telegram channel Krymsky Veter logged explosions from 23:55, pointing to a likely hit on a thermal power plant and a Wildberries warehouse, and later noted a fire at a substation in the Feodosia district. Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ also reported the Simferopol strike, while the Astra Telegram channel said the sorting center there was attacked overnight.

Wildberries confirmed it, saying it evacuated staff from the Simferopol center at 01:40 "in line with safety requirements." Founder Tatyana Kim later confirmed the warehouse had been hit.

By morning, the drones struck the St. Petersburg area. Videos published by Exilenova+ and reports cited by Astra documented two logistics centers on fire — one at Shushary in the city's Pushkinsky district, a roughly 106,000-square-meter complex among the retailer's largest in northwest Russia, and one at Utkina Zavod in the village of Novosaratovka, just across the city's administrative line.

Astra reported the Novosaratovka blaze. Wildberries said it had temporarily halted work at both. Ukraine's Defense Forces used long-range FP-1 drones made by Fire Point.

Ukraine's drone-force commander Robert Brovdi, call sign "Madyar," wrote on Facebook: 

"Today from Simferopol to Piter" — Piter being the Russian nickname for St. Petersburg.

Leningrad Oblast Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko claimed air defenses shot down 59 drones. He also confirmed a hit on the Novosaratovka Wildberries warehouse that injured three people, and said drones struck a storage building at the "Severnaya" poultry farm in Sinyavino, collapsing part of one structure. St. Petersburg Governor Aleksandr Beglov acknowledged a drone hitting a "civilian infrastructure object."

A fire also broke out at a logistics-center administrative building in Tver after a drone attack, which the acting regional governor said was already put out—one version held it was also a Wildberries warehouse. 

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Another week of strikes on the retailer

The day before, Ukrainian drones hit a Wildberries distribution center in Voronezh Oblast, where the governor acknowledged roof damage, and tried to reach a warehouse in Kazan, where locals said air defenses downed them.

Over the past week, Ukrainian drones struck about 10% of Wildberries' logistics network and knocked out 8% of its warehouses, Russian business daily Kommersant calculated from open data. Rebuilding the lost storage space alone, without equipment, was estimated at about $450 million, and company sources warned some sites may need full reconstruction. 

Ukrainian drones struck logistics warehouses and an oil depot deep in Russia's Moscow Oblast overnight, setting off a wave of fires, monitoring channels reported. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later confirmed the strikes. Russian authorities acknowledged the attack while claiming their air defenses had beaten back most of it.

Monitors tracked the strike and at least five fires

The Ukrainian monitoring Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported the attack and the first fires from around 3 a.m. on 20 July, sharing photos and video through the night. Ukrainian Defense Forces drones hit an oil depot and four logistics warehouses near Moscow, Militarnyi reported, adding that local residents recorded at least five separate fire sites.

The oil depot sat in Podolsk, roughly 46 km south of Moscow, holding 10 tanks with a combined 19,400 cubic meters. NASA's FIRMS satellite system flagged an abnormal heat spike there at 04:05. 

A warehouse fire also broke out at the Yuzhnye Vrata logistics park near Domodedovo, a complex used by Wildberries, Yandex Market, Alibaba Group, Decathlon and other firms. The Russian news Telegram channel Astra placed that blaze from eyewitness footage, and Domodedovo authorities later acknowledged it.

Drones also struck the Gryvno logistics park in the Podolsk district, a site used by Ozon. 

Astra put a fifth fire in Podolsk's Klimovsk area, about 200 meters from a Russian small-arms research institute.

Drones hit a Wildberries hub, the company denied it

Militarnyi said drones hit the Wildberries sorting center in Koledino, one of the company's largest, partially destroying two warehouses. Monitoring channels identified the drones as FP-1s. Wildberries — Russia's largest online retailer and its answer to Amazon — denied any damage in a statement carried by the pro-war Russian Telegram channel Two Majors, saying it had evacuated staff as a precaution and the complex was working normally. Astra said it could not confirm a fire at the site.

A drone struck the top floor of a residential building in Domodedovo, damaging the facade without starting a fire, local authorities claimed. The Domodedovo hospital reported six people brought in with blast injuries, while Moscow Oblast Governor Andrei Vorobyov said at least 10 were wounded across the region.

Vorobyov claimed the attack had been repelled, citing damage in Odintsovo, Podolsk, and Domodedovo. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated more than 400 drones flew toward the region between 20:30 Sunday and 5:00 Monday, and that 85 were downed near the Russian capital. 

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Ukraine casts the strike as an answer to Russia

Zelenskyy confirmed that the Unmanned Systems Forces, intelligence, missile and artillery troops, and Special Operations Forces had struck logistics facilities and an oil depot more than 400 kilometers from the border. Ukrainian forces also hit two shadow-fleet tankers and four dry-cargo ships in the Black Sea the same night, he said.

"We fairly respond to every Russian strike on our cities and communities," Zelenskyy said. "This war must be ended, and that is only possible by increasing pressure on the sole cause of this war — Russia."

The attack was the second on Russian logistics terminals in days, following fires at a Wildberries center in Elektrostal and an oil depot in Noginsk on 18 July. Ukraine's drones have reached the capital region repeatedly throughout the summer.

After the 18 July attack, a Wildberries founder offered sellers loans rather than compensation, saying the marketplace was not obligated to pay for goods lost in the fires.