Ukrainian drones burn Wildberries’ Kotovsk warehouse for a second time
Tambov governor Yevgeny Pervyshov said about 100,000 square metres caught fire and later called the logistics centre completely destroyed. The hub, opened last year, was built to hold up to 54 million items. One person was hurt.
Kotovsk2 min read
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Ukrainian drones hit the Wildberries logistics centre in Kotovsk, Tambov region, overnight into 26 August and set fire to a building that Russian officials later described as destroyed. Governor Yevgeny Pervyshov first said about 100,000 square metres were burning, a footprint he compared to 14 football pitches. He later wrote that the centre had been “completely destroyed by fire.” One person was injured. Staff were evacuated.
Wildberries, which trades as RWB in some filings, confirmed a drone strike, a fire, and a halt to new inbound shipments. The Kotovsk site opened in 2025 as a central hub for Russia’s largest online retailer. At full fit it was designed to store up to 54 million items across roughly 108,000 square metres. It had already been struck in mid-July and brought back into use. Witnesses in the town counted at least ten explosions in forty minutes. Mayor Alexei Plakhotnikov told residents to stay off the streets for two days and keep windows shut because of the smoke.
Kotovsk sits about 420 to 500 kilometres from the front, depending on the measuring point, and about 500 kilometres southeast of Moscow. Tambov airport closed for a period the same night. The geography is the point. These are not border sheds. They are the warehouses that keep a wartime consumer market moving while heavy industry and oil refining take the better-known drone hits.
Ukraine has been burning Wildberries sites since mid-July and has added Ozon, the other giant of Russian e-commerce, in recent days. Reuters noted that the two platforms are among the few fast-growing pieces of an economy that has otherwise flattened after four and a half years of full-scale war. Hitting them is a way to impose delay, spoilage and insurance cost on ordinary retail without having to reach a refinery every night.
The same overnight wave killed civilians elsewhere. Lipetsk governor Igor Artamonov said a drone set a private house on fire and killed a man and a 14-year-old. Two women were hurt. In Belgorod a woman was killed. The Russian defence ministry said its forces shot down 426 Ukrainian drones overnight. Ukrainian monitoring channels also claimed a fire at the Lukoil refinery in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region. Both sides deny a policy of targeting civilians.
For Wildberries the second fire in six weeks at the same node is an inventory and routing problem. A hub built for 54 million items cannot be replaced in a week. Orders will shift to other regions, with longer lead times and higher last-mile cost. For Ukrainian planners the lesson is that a logistics shed in Tambov is now inside the regular target set, alongside fuel and rail.
The fire does not change the front line. It does show how far the drone war has moved into the civilian supply chain that keeps Russian cities stocked. A marketplace that grew through the war now has to treat fire and air-raid closures as a line item, not an exception.
