Ukrainian Drones Kill Seven Wildberries Workers, Hit Moscow-Region Oil Depot in Overnight Barrage

Seven night-shift workers are dead and at least 51 people are wounded after Ukraine launched a wave of drone strikes deep inside Russia overnight into Saturday, July 18, hitting two warehouses run by online retailer Wildberries and an oil depot in the Moscow region, according to Russian regional officials and CNBC.

The deadliest strike hit a Wildberries logistics complex in Kotovsk, in Russia's Tambov region, roughly 475 kilometers southeast of Moscow. Tambov Governor Yevgeny Pervyshov said on Telegram that seven employees working the night shift died on the spot, and 25 others were wounded. He said 28 drones were shot down before reaching the facility. Kyiv Post reported the complex, operated as Wildberries & Russ, opened for business in 2025.

A second Wildberries warehouse, this one in Elektrostal roughly 50 kilometers east of Moscow, also caught fire after being struck. Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov said 24 people were injured there. Kyiv Post cited Exilenova+ describing it as the company's second-largest logistics facility by order volume, with the fire confirmed independently through open-source imagery by OSINT analysts at the Astra project.

Wildberries co-founder and CEO Tatyana Kim called it a "terrible night" for the company and Russia, and offered condolences to victims' families, according to CNBC.

A third strike hit an oil depot in Noginsk, also in the Moscow region. Vorobyov said falling drone debris sparked the fire there, wounding two people. A nearby maternity hospital and a residential building were evacuated as a precaution. Kyiv Post reported the Noginsk facility holds 24 storage tanks with a combined capacity of 11,500 cubic meters and functions as a hub for gasoline, diesel and kerosene traders serving the Moscow region. Vorobyov did not specify how badly the site was damaged.

What Ukraine says it hit

President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed on X that Ukrainian forces struck what he described as two "significant logistical facilities" in the Moscow and Tambov regions, saying they were used to supply sanctioned components for drone production and navigation equipment, along with a separate oil facility, according to CNBC and the Times of India.

Ukraine isn't just claiming a symbolic hit on Russia's biggest e-commerce company. Kyiv is arguing these Wildberries logistics hubs functioned as supply chain nodes for military hardware, not simply as warehouses for consumer goods. Russian officials have not directly disputed that characterization in their public statements, focusing instead on casualty counts and evacuations.

Scale of the barrage

The Times of India reported Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses intercepted 379 Ukrainian drones overnight across 19 Russian regions, plus Crimea, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. That's a large number, and it underscores that whatever got through represents a small fraction of what was launched. Still, seven people are dead, and the ones that did get through hit real infrastructure.

Kyiv Post also reported a parallel set of strikes hit Russian-occupied Crimea early Saturday, with the Krymsky Veter monitoring channel citing more than 20 explosions near the Gvardeyskoye military airfield and additional blasts in Sevastopol, Feodosia and Kerch. Reports suggested the Balaklava Thermal Power Plant may have been among the targets, though this has not been independently confirmed. The Gvardeyskoye airfield was previously hit July 5, according to Kyiv Post.

Part of a broader pattern

Ukrainian forces have struck similar targets before. Kyiv Post noted Ukrainian forces struck the Gazpromneftekhim Salavat complex in Bashkortostan and the Afipsky Oil Refinery in Krasnodar Krai on July 14, with Ukraine's General Staff confirming those strikes targeted fuel and lubricant production supporting Russia's military and economy. Saturday's attacks extend that campaign against Russia's domestic fuel and logistics network rather than representing a one-off escalation.

The four sources reviewed are consistent on the core facts: the death toll, the wounded count, and the named locations are consistent across CNBC, the Times of India, the Daily Pioneer and Kyiv Post. The Times of India adds the most granular detail on Russia's claimed interception numbers, while Kyiv Post provides the most detail on the Crimea strikes and the broader refinery campaign, information the other three outlets did not include.

What remains unconfirmed is the actual extent of physical damage to the Noginsk oil depot and to the Wildberries facilities. Vorobyov did not specify losses at either Moscow-region site, and no independent damage assessment has been published as of Saturday. Russia has not announced any retaliatory strike specifically tied to this barrage, though its broader missile and drone campaign against Ukrainian cities continues on a near-daily basis.