Warehouses 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. Both Russia and Ukraine deny deliberately targeting civilians.
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 ( ) 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. Russia's businesses under strain from Ukraine's attacks on Wildberries Burnham to hand long-range missile blueprints to Zelensky as he visits Kyiv 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. Shares in Ozon fell by as much as 12% on the Moscow Exchange on Monday morning, while shares in its major shareholder, private equity firm AFK Sistema, fell by almost 13%. When asked on Monday whether the Russian government would provide state support to Ozon, the Kremlin said it was "working with business representatives to develop various options for providing support in this difficult situation".
The overnight strikes comes a day after Ozon's site in the Samara region was hit. The company said a number of its workers had been injured. Following that strike, Ukraine's defence ministry said on Saturday: "Systematic strikes on dual-use goods storage centres complicate the enemy's logistics and negatively affect the Russian economy as a whole.
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