Ukrainian drones attacked two Ozon logistics centers overnight on 27 August, one in Ufa and one in Orenburg Oblast, Russia's second-largest online store said. Staff were evacuated at both sites, and preliminary information indicated no casualties. Video published by Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ shows a drone reaching the Bashkortostan warehouse and exploding.

The strike on camera

Exilenova+ reported in the morning that an Ozon warehouse was burning after impacts in Blagoveshchensk, a town north of Ufa. The Bashkortostan capital lies roughly 1,300 kilometers from the war zone in Ukraine. Around midday the channel published eyewitness video of what it called the moment of a drone attack on the site, and said the warehouse had not caught fire. The footage shows a drone reaching the site and detonating there.

Earlier, the channel reported that residents of Sterlitamak, Bashkortostan's second-largest city, about 120 kilometers from Ufa, had written about explosions, with nothing then known about impacts. Astra later placed smoke over what it said was probably the Bashkir Soda Company works there.

Ozon said the Orenburg site—about 1,200 kilometers from the war zone—has resumed work. The one it placed in Ufa sustained what it called minor damage but remains closed, because the grounds need a thorough inspection. It is not accepting deliveries.

Russian news Telegram channel Astra identified the damaged facility from the eyewitness footage as Ozon's UFA_RFC fulfillment center in Blagoveshchensk. When it opened in late 2024 it was billed as the largest Ozon logistics complex in Russia's Volga federal district, with a total area of 93,000 square meters.

Smoke over the Ufa refineries

Astra also traced smoke in eyewitness footage to the Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim refinery in Ufa. The plant is one of Rosneft's leading refineries and a dual-use site: it supplies specialized fuel to Russia's armed forces and petrochemical feedstock for defense-grade materials. It burned after a strike on 1 August.

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Ukrainian drones hit warehouse belonging to Russian online retailer Ozon for the first time

What officials said, and didn't

Bashkortostan's authorities did not report the attack. Orenburg Oblast governor Yevgeny Solntsev mentioned drone danger in his region but gave no account of consequences. Ufa closed its airport.

Russia's Defense Ministry claimed air defenses destroyed 267 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones overnight across Russian regions, Bashkortostan among them.

The campaign so far

Ukraine's warehouse campaign began with Wildberries, Russia's largest online marketplace, which lost eight warehouses and roughly 860,000 square meters of storage in July alone. It reached Ozon for the first time on 22 August at Chapayevsk in Samara Oblast, where more than 500 employees evacuated and people were hurt. Four more Ozon hubs were hit across southern Russia two nights later.

Ukrainian drones struck the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat oil-refining and petrochemical complex in Russia's Bashkortostan on the morning of 13 August, setting off a fire — the second strike on one of Russia's largest refineries in a month.

The repeat hit lands as Ukraine's deep-strike campaign forces Russian refining to its lowest level since 2002 and pushes fuel shortages back into at least 16 regions, where drivers again face queues and sales limits at filling stations. Striking the same plants faster than Moscow can repair them is the point — each return resets the clock on units that take weeks or months to rebuild.

What happened

Bashkortostan's head, Radiy Khabirov, confirmed that debris from a downed drone fell in Salavat's industrial zone and sparked a blaze, which he called a "terrorist attack." Ukrainian monitoring channels Exilenova+ and Supernova identified the target as the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat plant, and residents reported a column of black smoke over the site. Ukraine's military had not commented on the strike.

The complex is one of Russia's largest refining and petrochemical sites. It processed about 7.2 million tons of crude in 2024 — roughly 2.7% of Russia's total refining — and turns out gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, ammonia, and more, according to Reuters, citing industry sources.

Ukrainian drones struck the same plant on 14 July, damaging two primary distillation units and halting operations; industry sources told Reuters the repairs could take weeks to months. Open-source data cited by Radio Svoboda places Russia's only heptyl rocket-fuel producer, the Salavat Chemical Plant, inside the same industrial perimeter, though there is no confirmation it was hit.

A campaign that keeps resetting repairs

Since early August, at least four refineries have stopped processing after Ukrainian strikes, including plants in Orenburg, Tyumen, Saratov, and Volgograd oblasts. Across 2026, attacks have interrupted work at no fewer than 26 refineries, seven of them still offline at the end of July, according to S&P Global.

Russian refining has fallen to about 3.6 million barrels a day, the lowest since 2002, per EA Analytics — the trigger for the fuel crisis now resurfacing. Shortages had eased by late July, but by mid-August residents of at least 16 regions were again reporting queues and sales restrictions, with Ai-92 and Ai-95 grades pulled from some Gazprom and Lukoil stations.

Attack on warehouse Wildberries

Drones also struck a Wildberries logistics center under construction in Bashkortostan's Chishminsky district, according to the monitoring channel Astra.

Wildberries is Russia's largest online retailer. The hub—about 187,000 square meters—has been under construction since 2024 on the grounds of the "Center of Agrotechnologies" agropark.