Russian industrial sites on fire after Ukrainian drone attacks

Russia’s top online retailer Wildberries says it has evacuated warehouses in Ryazan.

Ukrainian drone attacks have hit industrial facilities in Russia’s western city of Ryazan, causing several to catch fire and forcing major retailer Wildberries to evacuate its local warehouses, according to authorities.

Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov said 45 drones were shot down over the region overnight Tuesday, with falling debris causing a fire in an “industrial area” and damaging a home and a building. Six people were hospitalised with injuries, he said in a post on Telegram.

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The report comes as Ukraine ramps up attacks on Russian industrial sites, including those belonging to Wildberries, which Kyiv accuses of helping to supply the Russian army.

Drones have damaged at least seven Wildberries warehouses in the past several days, destroying about 10 percent of the company’s storage capacity, disrupting operations and inflicting losses ‌on tens of thousands of small businesses that sell goods and services on the platform, according to the company and local authorities.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s latest strikes hit “an oil refinery and logistics centre in Ryazan,” as well as a site in Russian-occupied Crimea, where high-speed boats belonging to Russian Black Sea Fleet are based.

“Russia must feel that every day of this war will only come at a higher cost for it,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

Russian attacks hit Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk

Separately, a woman was killed ⁠and a man injured after missile debris hit an apartment building in the southern Russian city of Taganrog on the Sea of Azov, home to various industrial facilities and a grain terminal, ⁠regional governor Yury Slyusar said.

In Ukraine’s Kherson, a man was killed and another three people wounded in a Russian ⁠drone attack, local authorities said.

Five people, including a child, were also injured in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, where Russia carried out dozens of attacks, using drones, aerial bombs and artillery, the head of the local military administration said.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence ⁠said on Wednesday that its forces had seized two Ukrainian villages – Svtitle, in the eastern Donetsk region, and Nova Sich, in the northeastern Sumy region. It also claimed its drones hit two vessels carrying weapons and military equipment east of the Ukrainian port of Odesa, where the local military administration chief reported damaged infrastructure.

Ukraine and Russia have both increasingly targeted vessels in the Black Sea and the Sea of ‌Azov in recent weeks, which has led to a fall in oil and grain supplies in the region.

Ukraine’s new Acting Defence Minister Yevhenii Khmara said in an interview Wednesday that Ukraine cannot go “punch for punch” when confronting Russia militarily but must use resources carefully and act ⁠in an “asymmetric” fashion.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy met United States President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, discussing plans for Ukraine to produce Patriot missile interceptors – crucial in Ukraine’s defence against Russian aerial attacks – and a revival of peace talks with Russia.