MOSCOW, RUSSIA – 2023/03/15: A Wildberries logo seen in one of the company’s distribution centers in Moscow. Russian Media reports that employees of Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries throughout the country launched a protest against a new payment system introduced by the company. (Photo by Vlad Karkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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Waves of Ukrainian drone attacks killed seven warehouse workers and injured dozens more, while another attack sparked a fire at an oil depot in the wider capital region, regional governors said on Saturday.
Governor Evgeniy Pervyshov said 25 people were injured after Ukrainian drones slammed into a warehouse owned by Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, in the city of Kotovsk in the Tambov region, roughly 475 kilometers (295 miles) southeast of Moscow.
“Seven people working the night shift died on the spot,” Pervyshov wrote on Telegram, adding that 28 drones were also shot down on approach.
“If they had achieved their goal, the number of civilian casualties could have been much higher,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv had struck two logistics facilities used by Russia to supply components for drone production and navigation equipment. An oil facility was also hit, Zelenskyy wrote on X.
The governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov, said 24 people were injured following a drone attack on another Wildberries warehouse in Elektrostal, a city east of Moscow.
Wildberries co-founder and CEO, Tatyana Kim, said it had been a “terrible night” for Russia and for the company, offering her condolences to the victims’ families.
In the city of Noginsk, also in the Moscow region, falling drone debris caused a fire to break out at an oil depot, Vorobyov said.
He did not specify the damage to the facility, but said two people were injured in Noginsk and a nearby maternity hospital had been evacuated.
