Russian retail depot burns after long-range drone strike
Ukrainian long-range drones hit a warehouse in the Ural Mountains belonging to Russia’s biggest online retailer, more than 2,000 kilometres from the two countries’ border, local officials and the company said Friday.
Ukraine has regularly hit targets in the distant Urals this year and has even struck a Russian oil refinery in western Siberia, nearly 2,500 kilometres from the border. The attacks are examples of how Kyiv has used drone innovation as a key part of its response to the invasion by its much bigger enemy more than four years ago.
Its successes have drawn international interest and drone cooperation agreements with nine countries, with further deals being negotiated with 15 other countries, according to Kyiv officials. A Wildberries warehouse in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, was set ablaze by the attack, the company said. Most merchandise wasn’t damaged, it said, unlike at some of the more than a dozen other Wildberries depots struck by Ukraine in recent weeks that have burned down. Kyiv is trying to rattle the Russian public and the Kremlin with the attacks.
The regional governor, Denis Pasler, said three drones hit the warehouse’s roof. Artyom Zhoga, the Kremlin’s representative in the region, said that 800 people were evacuated from the warehouse and nobody was hurt. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is pushing for his country to keep up the pace of technological development, especially in air defence systems to help stop Russian ballistic missiles that are exploiting Ukraine’s shortage of American-made Patriot interceptor missiles and battering civilian areas.
A joint European anti-ballistic development programme is already underway, Zelenskyy said late Thursday, with 10 countries engaged in developing an anti-ballistic shield. Europe is concerned about Moscow’s ambitions on the continent beyond Ukraine.
