Ukrainian drones struck a logistics complex belonging to Russian online retailer Ozon in Orenburg on 23 August, the second Ozon warehouse hit in two days, monitoring Telegram channels reported. The site sits about 1,200 km from the war zone, near Russia's border with Kazakhstan. Hours earlier, a large fire tore through a separate warehouse outside St. Petersburg, roughly 900 km north of Ukraine, though local authorities declared no drone or missile threat.

Drones hit Russia's biggest Ozon warehouse

Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ published video of the strike moment, after which a fire took hold on the site. Independent Russian outlet Astra analyzed eyewitness footage showing an emergency vehicle racing toward the depot. The complex spans more than 200,000 m² and was designed to hold over 31 million items, ranking among Ozon's biggest in Russia.

The warehouse stands inside the city's special economic zone, a tax-favored industrial park on the eastern edge of European Russia. The first phase opened in August 2024, and a second building followed in 2025.

Orenburg mayor Albert Yumadilov claimed several drones were downed over the special economic zone and that debris fell on the Ozon complex, starting a fire that crews quickly put out with no one hurt. 

Ozon confirmed the strike, saying it evacuated more than 300 workers, pulled its goods from the marketplace and stopped taking new deliveries while the site sat idle. 

A second fire near St. Petersburg, with no air-raid alert

Overnight, a large blaze hit a warehouse in the Kolpino area south of St. Petersburg. Astra established that the warehouse stood about 350 m from an Ozon site, and witnesses said they heard no drones or air defense. Ukrainian Telegram channel Exile+ identified the burning facility as a storage warehouse run by Logistera.

Part of a widening campaign on Russian marketplace logistics

The Orenburg hit followed the first-ever Ozon strike a day earlier, at a warehouse in Chapaevsk, Samara Oblast. Before turning to Ozon, Ukrainian drones had struck more than 10 warehouses belonging to the larger Russian marketplace Wildberries. Such marketplace hubs move not only consumer goods but dual-use items like electronics and drone components that can reach Russia's military.

Ukrainian FP-1 drones struck an Ozon warehouse in Chapayevsk, Russia’s Samara Oblast, overnight on 22 August 2026, manufacturer Fire Point said.

The attack on the Chapayevsk facility expands Ukraine’s warehouse campaign from Wildberries, Russia’s largest online marketplace, to its second-largest rival, Ozon. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russia's major e-commerce distribution hubs to disrupt commercial logistics that Kyiv says help sustain Moscow’s war.

Ozon said the attack injured people and prompted the evacuation of more than 500 employees.

The strike was the first confirmed Ukrainian attack to damage and set fire to an Ozon warehouse, Reuters reported. A drone alert forced Ozon to evacuate a facility in Tatarstan on 31 July, but the building was undamaged and later reopened.

Fire Point said the facility is one of Ozon’s largest warehouses in Volga Oblast, storing goods and processing more than 215,000 orders for delivery each day.

Ozon and Wildberries—Russia’s two largest online marketplaces—and their smaller rivals collectively sell goods and services worth the equivalent of 8.5% of Russia’s GDP and employ 4 million people, Reuters reported in July.

Ozon suspended operations indefinitely and stopped accepting seller deliveries, the company said. As a result, shipments are being redirected to other facilities, while affected orders will either be fulfilled elsewhere or canceled and refunded.

Several people were receiving medical treatment, Samara Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev claimed. Neither he nor Ozon specified how many people were injured, and the extent of the damage remains unclear.

Ukraine’s previous strikes on Russian warehouses

Ukrainian drones had previously concentrated on Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer. Since 18 July, Ukraine has struck at least two dozen Wildberries warehouses, Reuters reported.

Ukrainian officials have alleged that Wildberries warehouses move military-linked goods, including drone components. The Kremlin has denied that the company supplies Russian forces. Fire Point made no corresponding claim about the Ozon warehouse.

Ukraine’s military said the same overnight wave also hit the Novokuibyshevsk refinery in Samara Oblast and caused a fire.

Russian and occupation officials claimed that the broader wave caused civilian deaths and injuries in Yeysk, Belgorod, Bryansk, and Russian-occupied Luhansk.

Ukrainian forces struck production facilities at the Novokuybyshevsk oil refinery in Russia’s Samara Oblast overnight on 22 August, sparking a fire at the Rosneft-owned plant, Ukraine’s General Staff said. The extent of the damage remains under assessment.

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russia’s oil refineries to restrict military fuel supplies and reduce the energy revenues supporting Moscow’s war. The latest strike came as gasoline rationing returned to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and Rosneft capped nationwide purchases. Militarnyi described the plant as one of Russia’s 10 largest refineries.

The Rosneft-owned refinery can process about 8.8 million metric tons of crude annually and produces more than 20 petroleum products, including aviation fuel and diesel, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

Fire Point said FP-1 long-range drones were used to strike the refinery.

The same overnight wave also hit an Ozon logistics center in Chapayevsk, where people were injured, and work was halted, Reuters reported, citing the company.

Neither the damage to the refinery nor any interruption to production has been independently confirmed.

Ukraine keeps pressure on Russian fuel supplies

The strike came one day after Ukraine confirmed hitting Lukoil’s Perm refinery, approximately 1,530 kilometers from Ukraine’s northern border. That attack also caused a fire, according to the General Staff.

At least four Russian refineries went offline during August amid continuing Ukrainian attacks.

By mid-August, filling stations in at least 12 Russian regions were experiencing hours-long lines. Some areas had reintroduced purchase limits or rationing based on license-plate numbers, according to the same report.

Gasoline limits had also been reinstated in Moscow and St. Petersburg, while Rosneft had capped sales at 30 liters per vehicle across its nationwide filling-station network. Diesel purchases remained unrestricted.

Satellite imagery shows the damage Ukraine's Flamingo missiles inflicted on Russia's main rocket-assembly plant, the Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported on 18 August. The overhead photo show a collapsed roof section over a key hall at the Progress Rocket Space Center in Samara, a Russian city about 900 km from the war zone in Ukraine. It puts a measurable figure on damage Kyiv had until now only claimed.

The satellite photo centers the damage on building 106A, Exilenova+ said. Crews there wire the rockets' control systems, cabling and instrument bays. The imagery shows two missile hits on that hall, the channel reported.

The collapsed roof section runs 85 meters long and 35 meters wide. Ukraine struck the plant on 15 August with its home-built Flamingo cruise missiles, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed at the time.

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Reported Flamingo strike hits Samara industrial area housing factory that builds rockets for Russia’s Starlink rival

A rocket hall with no domestic replacement

Progress is the only plant in Russia that serially assembles the Soyuz-2 rocket family, used to launch military reconnaissance and targeting satellites, Exilenova+ noted. 

The plant also lofts the Rassvet satellites built by Bureau 1440, Russia's answer to Starlink. The country has no full alternative to the Samara site, they added. Next to building 106A stands 106B, the complex's final-assembly hall.

Ukraine's Fire Point company builds the Flamingo, a long-range cruise missile. Its growing reach lets Kyiv strike defense and space plants far from the front. Overhead imagery has exposed earlier Flamingo damage deep inside Russia.