Ukrainian drones struck a Wildberries warehouse for the fifth time this week, targeting a logistics centre in St Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad region overnight on July 24, triggering large fires. Drones also hit a Wildberries sorting centre in Russian-occupied Simferopol, Crimea, and a facility in Tver.

St Petersburg — 1,100 km from Ukraine's border and Vladimir Putin's home city — has rarely been hit during the war given the concentration of Russian air defences there, so the strike marks a notable extension of Ukraine's reach.

Fires broke out at the Utkin Zavod logistics park south of the city and at a separate facility in the Shushary district; Leningrad Oblast governor Alexander Drozdenko said three people were hospitalised. Wildberries confirmed both St Petersburg-area logistics centres were “temporarily suspended” and around 50 flights were delayed at Pulkovo airport as a result of the attack.

Drones killed seven people at a Wildberries warehouse in Tambov region on July 18, prompting Russia to respond with its largest bombardment of Kyiv of the war. By July 20, sellers were facing more than $1bn in losses, a single warehouse strike alone was estimated to cost up to $0.5bn, and rival e-commerce operator Ozon saw its shares plunge 12% as the strikes rattled the wider sector.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the campaign also hit military enterprises in Kirov and an unnamed oil facility overnight. “It is important that the operation is also ongoing against Russian logistics, which provides the occupying army with components for drones, navigation equipment, and equipment,” he said, without directly naming the Wildberries strikes. Wildberries, founded by Tatyana Kim, Russia’s richest woman and Wildberries’ co-founder and chief executive, lists drone components and body armour for sale on its site and was flagged by Poland as “the largest taxpayer in the Russian Federation” when it was first sanctioned in 2022.

Separately on July 24, a Russian ballistic missile strike hit an arms exhibition event in Kyiv, killing at least six people, Ukraine's Air Force said — underlining that the tit-for-tat escalation bne IntelliNews flagged in its own July 18 analysis is continuing to run in both directions.