At least 'eight dead and 62 injured' after Ukrainian drones strike Russian online retail warehouses
Seven of the dead are said to be nightshift workers at the factories likened to Russia's version of Amazon
At least eight people have been killed and 62 injured after Ukrainian drones struck two warehouses belonging to Russian online retailer Wildberries, according to officials.
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Seven of the deaths, believed to be nightshift workers, died at a building in the city of Tambov, roughly 295 miles (475km) south-east of Moscow.
The other death and 37 of the injuries occurred at another Wildberries warehouse in Elektrostal in the Moscow region.
In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attacks had struck "major logistics facilities" which had been used to "supply sanctioned components for drone production and navigation equipment".
Mr Zelenskyy said the military operations were in response to Russian strikes on Ukraine's "civilian infrastructure and on our cities and communities".
It comes after 14 people were killed in Russian strikes across Ukraine overnight into Wednesday.
Wildberries is frequently seen as the Russian equivalent of Amazon.
Zero damage.
— Saint Javelin (@saintjavelin) July 18, 2026
For years, Russia deliberately targeted Ukraine’s logistics infrastructure, destroying Nova Poshta depots, warehouses, and distribution hubs to disrupt civilian life and the economy.
Today, Ukraine struck the second-largest Wildberries order fulfillment center in… pic.twitter.com/orpWeJppjr
The governor of the Tambov region, Evgeniy Pervyshov, wrote on Telegram: "Seven people working the night shift died on the spot", adding that 28 drones were shot down on approach.
It comes after it was reported that Russian troops entering the front line in Ukraine are surviving between 20 and 30 minutes on average due to deadly AI "killing machine" drones.
Central Intelligence Agency director John Ratcliffe revealed the numbers and said that Vladimir Putin is also losing up to 7,000 soldiers every week in the conflict.
Mr Ratcliffe was speaking at the Pennsylvania Defence and Innovation Summit, where he attributed the deadly conditions to Ukraine's low-cost lethal combat drones.
He said: "What I would say is our intelligence is consistent with some of the open-source reporting you may have seen in Ukraine.
"So the average life expectancy of a Russian recruit right now, arriving on the battlefield in Ukraine, is estimated to be between 20 and 30 minutes."
"And that's because AI-powered drones have gotten to be such specialised, low-cost killing machines.
"It's why we're now four and a half years into that conflict."
An estimated two million troops have been killed, wounded or are missing since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.
Some 1.4 million of them are believed to be Russian, according to a recent estimate by the Centre for Strategic & International Studies.