Ukraine hits Ozon logistics hubs in expanded Russia drone campaign
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Ukraine has widened its drone campaign against Russian e-commerce infrastructure, striking three logistics hubs run by Ozon, Russia's second-largest online retailer, over its Independence Day weekend. Fires broke out at Ozon warehouses in Krasnodar and Makhachkala, with several people reported wounded in Makhachkala, while sites in Adygeysk and Nevinnomyssk were evacuated as a precaution. Ukraine's defence ministry said the strikes follow earlier attacks on 15 hubs belonging to market leader Wildberries, which Kyiv accuses of supplying components to the Russian military, and described three continuous days of action against Ozon.
The escalation coincided with new UK prime minister Andy Burnham's first foreign trip to Kyiv, where he is expected to confirm that UK components for the long-range Storm Shadow/Scalp missile system can now be shared with Ukraine for domestic production, alongside talks with Volodymyr Zelensky, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and António Costa. Russia responded by recalling its ambassador to London, calling relations "unprecedentedly low", after earlier warning of "consequences" over UK-enabled drone strikes. Separately, NATO scrambled two Romanian F-16 jets after a suspected Russian drone crossed into Romanian airspace near Târgu Bujor, and Ukraine also attempted a strike on a Russian military cosmodrome.
- Ukraine hit three Ozon warehouses over Independence Day weekend; injuries reported
- Follows earlier strikes on 15 Wildberries hubs; economic losses in billions
- Burnham in Kyiv to advance Storm Shadow missile tech transfer; Russia recalls UK ambassador
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Ukraine's use of long-range drones against targets deep inside Russia has grown since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, moving beyond purely military sites to infrastructure Kyiv says supports the war effort. Ozon and Wildberries are Russia's two biggest online retail and delivery companies, similar in scale to Amazon, with vast warehouse networks across the country. Ukraine's military says some of this logistics infrastructure is used to move components for weapons and drones, which is why it has become a target.
The story also intersects with Western support for Ukraine. Andy Burnham recently became UK prime minister, and his visit to Kyiv is being watched as an early signal of how his government will handle military backing for Ukraine, including missile technology sharing. Diplomatic ties between London and Moscow have been strained for some time over Britain's role in helping Ukraine strike targets inside Russia, and Russia recalling its ambassador marks a further downturn.
The wider region remains on edge because the conflict occasionally spills beyond Ukraine's borders, for instance through drones straying into neighbouring NATO countries such as Romania. NATO members monitor and respond to such incidents closely, since any incursion into alliance airspace raises concerns about the risk of the war widening.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters of Ukraine's campaign argue that Wildberries and Ozon hubs are legitimate military targets once evidence shows they handle components feeding Russia's war machine, making them dual-use infrastructure rather than purely civilian sites. They contend that degrading such logistics networks weakens Russia's ability to sustain its invasion without striking population centres directly, and that advance evacuations at some sites show an effort to limit casualties while still achieving military effect. For this view, allowing ambiguous commercial cover to shield military supply chains would hand Russia an unearned sanctuary in a war it started.
The case against
Critics of the strikes argue that hitting major retail logistics hubs blurs the line between military and civilian infrastructure, risking harm to warehouse workers and local residents who have no direct role in arms supply, as the injuries reported in Makhachkala illustrate. They worry that expanding targets from one e-commerce firm to a second normalises attacks on ordinary economic infrastructure, inviting reciprocal strikes on Ukrainian civilian logistics and further escalating a war already spilling into NATO airspace. They also caution that the military-supply justification rests on Kyiv's own assertions, which deserve scrutiny before civilian-adjacent sites are treated as legitimate targets.
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