Russia reports injuries after top online retailer Wildberries hit again

Ukrainian drones have again targeted warehouses belonging to Russia’s biggest online retailer, Wildberries, injuring eight people in the latest attack, the company says.

The CEO of Wildberries, Tatiana Kim, said on Wednesday morning that the company’s logistics centres in the southern cities of Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk had been evacuated following the attack.

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Vladimir Vladimirov, the governor of Stavropol Krai, said on Russia’s state-run Max platform that a warehouse complex had caught fire after a drone attack on the outskirts of Nevinnomyssk. He added that five people had received medical treatment.

The Krasnodar Krai operational headquarters said later that three more people were wounded when drone debris fell on the warehouse in Krasnodar.

On Saturday, Ukraine had targeted two key Wildberries warehouses, killing eight night-shift workers and sparking fires.

Separately, local authorities in the southern city of Armavir said on Wednesday that one worker was killed when drone debris fell on one of the sites there.

Confirming Wednesday’s attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the army had successfully targeted “important facilities in the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions”.

“Logistics centres involved in supplying the Russian army with components for drones, navigation equipment and supplies, as well as another oil depot,” he said.

“In the Black Sea and Azov Sea areas, a tanker and four cargo ships belonging to the Russian shadow fleet were hit. We thank all our soldiers of the Ukrainian Defence Forces for these results. We are justly returning the war to its source – to Russia,” Zelenskyy added.

The Commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdi, also said on Wednesday that Ukrainian drones struck 13 Russian vessels in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov in the past 48 hours.

Wednesday’s attacks come as Ukraine widens its attacks, as Kyiv pushes along with its strategy of using long-range drones to disrupt Russia’s war effort.

Reporting from Ukraine, Al Jazeera’s Audrey Macalpine said the attacks are part of what Ukraine calls its “40-day influence operations” to “influence Russia back to the negotiating table” through “long-range drone strikes deep inside Russia as well as on the Black Sea”.

On Wednesday, outgoing Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii also said that Ukraine had recaptured 700 sq km (270 sq miles) of its territory this year.

So far, Russia has not commented on the Ukrainian attacks on its territory.

At the same time, the Ukrainian governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, said on Wednesday that over the past 24 hours, 15 settlements had been subjected to Russian attacks, killing three people and injuring 11 others, including two children.

Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera wp:paragraph