At least eight people have died and more than 60 have been injured in the early hours of this Saturday in Russia following a massive attack by Ukrainian drones. The targets hit were two logistics centers of the e-commerce company Wildberries, known as the Russian Amazon. One was in the city of Elektrostal, in the Moscow region, and another in Kotovsk, in the Tambov region, according to Russian authorities, who have described this attack as the worst against the civilian population carried out by Ukraine since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.
The governor of Tambov, Yevgeny Pervishov, reported seven fatalities and 25 injured at the Kotovsk warehouse, while the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov, reported 37 injured at the Elektrostal logistics center, eight of them seriously. One of the injured later died in the hospital, raising the total death toll to eight.
Another incident was also recorded in the Moscow region: the fall of drone debris in the town of Noginsk caused a fire in a fuel depot, injured two other people, and forced the evacuation of a nearby maternity and children’s hospital.
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, confirmed that the Armed Forces of his country are responsible for the bombings of these facilities which, he claimed, Russia used “to ensure the supply of sanctioned components for the production of drones and navigation equipment” to continue attacking Ukraine.
This statement highlights the growing difficulty in distinguishing between military targets and civilian infrastructure when the commercial or logistics facilities attacked are part of the supply chains of the war effort.
Today, our long-range sanctions worked across three areas on Russian territory, as well as on our temporarily occupied land and at sea. In particular, in response to Russian strikes on our civilian infrastructure and on our cities and communities, two major logistics facilities… pic.twitter.com/oK87chn24u
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 18, 2026
Russian authorities, for their part, have described the attack as a “terrorist act” directed against the civilian population. Pervishov stated that the drones carried explosives with shrapnel and claimed that air defenses shot down 28 of these devices before they reached their target. The Russian Ministry of Defense also reported that nearly 400 drones were intercepted over its territory during the night, although this figure has not been independently verified.
Read more Aemet issues warning for the third heat wave of the summer
If the figure provided by Russia is true, this operation would be one of the largest drone attacks carried out by Ukraine since the start of the invasion, reflecting how Kyiv is increasing its capacity to strike hundreds of kilometers inside Russia.
Attacks on civilian targets
So far, Ukraine has concentrated much of its long-range attacks on Russian territory on targets with military or economic value, such as refineries, fuel depots, air bases, arms factories, etc. Russia, however, has carried out a sustained and systematic campaign against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
Thus, Kyiv has presented Saturday’s operation as a response to the Russian campaign of bombings against its civilian infrastructure. For example, the state postal service, Ukrposhta, which controlled 25% of the postal market before the invasion, has also been attacked on several occasions. Ukrposhta’s CEO, Ihor Smilyanskyy, reported last February that since the start of the large-scale war, 45 company employees have died; additionally, 47 post offices and hundreds of vehicles have been completely destroyed.
Also targeted was the postal service Nova Poshta, a civilian company that controlled 65% of the service before the war and does not transport weapons or ammunition, but has been subject to several Russian attacks.
Ukrainian railway and port services have also been targeted by Russian drones. Ports such as Odesa and other logistics facilities have been repeatedly attacked, affecting both grain exports and civilian transport. Among the most serious episodes is the bombing of the Kramatorsk railway station in April 2022, when a missile hit hundreds of civilians waiting to be evacuated and caused the death of at least 61 people. Energy network infrastructure, residential buildings, hospitals, schools, and other transport and public service facilities have also been attacked in the more than four years of war.
