Ukrainian drones killed at least 10 people in attacks against targets across Russia and Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, including a warehouse owned by online retailer Ozon and an industrial facility, Russian officials said on Saturday.
Russia and Ukraine are both ramping up drone campaigns aiming to cripple each other’s economic infrastructure, often striking targets far beyond the war’s front lines, as fighting on the battlefield grinds towards the four-and-a-half-year mark.
On Friday, at least 16 people were killed and more than 130 wounded when several Russian drones struck a shopping centre in central Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Ukraine’s strikes, which Kyiv says seek to choke off financing for Moscow’s war effort, had opened a “Pandora’s box” of Russian retaliation.
French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, promised to accelerate the delivery of new French equipment to Ukraine after discussing Kyiv’s shortage of air defences in a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In a post on Telegram on Saturday, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, governor of Russia’s Samara region, said an elderly woman had been killed in a strike on the city of Novokuibyshevsk, which he said caused damage to industrial facilities. Ukraine’s military said it had struck the city’s oil refinery, causing a fire.
Ozon, Russia’s second-largest online retailer, said in a statement on Telegram that work at its Samara region logistics centre in the town of Chapayevsk had been halted after the strike, which it said caused injuries.
The attack is the first on Ozon following weeks of drone strikes on its larger rival Wildberries, which Ukraine has cast as part of a wider campaign against economic infrastructure underpinning the Russian war in Ukraine.