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Russia’s second-biggest online retailer targeted in Ukrainian strikes

LWarehouses belonging to Russia’s second-largest online retailer have been hit by a wave of Ukrainian drone strikes.

Ozon said its logistics facilities in the southern regions of Krasnodar, Dagestan, Stavropol and Adygea were on fire and several people had been injured following overnight strikes.

Ukraine has for weeks struck sites belonging to Wildberries, the country’s biggest online retailer, describing the firm as a legitimate target because it supplied components to the military, which Moscow denies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Ukraine had opened “Pandora’s box” by striking economic targets and that Russia would hit back at Kyiv’s “most sensitive economic sectors”.

Russia has targeted Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure since launching its full-scale invasion in 2022, and recent Russian attacks have hit Ukrainian warehouses and cargo terminals.

Ozon said “a fire broke out” at a logistics centre in Makhachkala, in the southern region of Dagestan, following a drone attack at around 05:00 local time (02:00 GMT) on Monday.

The company said earlier that a “major fire” was burning at one of its logistics centres in the city of Krasnodar, 700km (435 miles) to the east of the Dagestan site.

Russia’s defence ministry said three children had been killed in Krasnodar following a Ukrainian drone attack. Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova said they were aged 13, 15 and 16, while six more children had been taken to hospital.

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Meanwhile, Ozon workers in Adygeysk, in the Adygea region, and Nevinnomyssk, in the Stavropol region, have been evacuated.

Videos posted on social media of the Ozon attacks have been verified by the BBC. One shows a drone hitting a warehouse in the Orenburg region, while another shows a large plume of smoke and flames rising from its warehouse in Dagestan.

 

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