A drone threat over Yekaterinburg, Russia prompted the country’s top online retailer, Wildberries, to temporarily evacuate its logistics facility on Saturday — the latest in a series of Ukrainian strikes targeting the company’s warehouses over the past week.
Wildberries announced it had paused operations at the Yekaterinburg hub as a safety precaution, though the facility itself was not damaged. About four hours after the evacuation, the company confirmed that normal operations had resumed.
Local officials issued a drone alert across the broader Sverdlovsk region earlier in the day, reporting that one drone attack had been intercepted over Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city. Governor Denis Pasler posted on the Telegram messaging app that debris from a downed drone had started a fire in a parking lot.
“Economic and infrastructure facilities were not damaged,” Pasler wrote, urging residents to stay alert as the threat had not fully passed.
The drone alert also disrupted the Russian Athletics Championships, which Yekaterinburg was hosting. Competitors and fans were forced to leave the open-air stadium and seek shelter, according to a Reuters witness on the scene. The incident delayed what was the second-to-last day of competition.
Runner Anastasia Fedonina, from the southwestern Volgograd region, described the situation as something athletes have grown accustomed to. “This has never happened to me at competitions, but in everyday life it has. Sometimes, even during training, we’ll have drone alerts and sirens going off. So, it’s a normal atmosphere, so to speak,” she said.
Ukraine has intensified its long-range drone campaign against Russian infrastructure throughout this year, aiming to weaken Russia’s war effort and push the Kremlin toward peace negotiations. Ukrainian officials say Wildberries has been targeted because it handles military supplies — an allegation the Kremlin has denied.
Meanwhile, officials in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region reported Saturday that an open fire had been put out at a warehouse struck by drones on Wednesday. Authorities did not identify the facility by name, though a Wildberries warehouse in Krasnodar was attacked on that same day.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has repeatedly struck Ukrainian logistics infrastructure, energy systems, and power grids in the years since.
Wildberries, along with its smaller competitors including top rival Ozon, collectively accounts for goods and services equal to 8.5% of Russia’s gross domestic product. Together, these companies employ approximately 4 million people — more than 5% of Russia’s total workforce.
