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Ukraine's drone campaign against Russia reached a psychologically significant milestone overnight on July 24, when Ukrainian unmanned aircraft struck logistics centers belonging to Wildberries — Russia's largest online retailer — simultaneously in St. Petersburg, Tver, and Russian-occupied Crimea. It was the fifth strike against Wildberries facilities in a single week, transforming what began as targeted economic disruption into something that looks increasingly like a sustained strategic campaign against Russia's domestic supply chain and civilian consumer infrastructure.
This campaign looks to be aimed at reducing President Putin's public support.
The St. Petersburg strikes carry particular weight. The city is Vladimir Putin's hometown, historically ringed by heavy air defenses precisely because of its symbolic importance to the Kremlin. For most of the war, Ukrainian drones simply could not reach it with enough reliability to make the attempt worthwhile. That calculus has changed dramatically in recent months, as Ukrainian drone technology has advanced to penetrate even the densest Russian air defense concentrations. The Wildberries facility in Novosaratovka village — just outside the administrative city limits but universally referred to as the St. Petersburg warehouse — was struck around 3:30 a.m., per Russian Telegram channels tracking the attack in real time. A second facility in the Shushary district was also hit. Both caught fire, with footage shared across Russian social media showing thick black smoke rising over the southern outskirts of the city.
St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov confirmed the attack in a Telegram post, characterizing the targets as "civilian infrastructure facilities on Moskovskoye Highway." Leningrad Oblast Governor Alexander Drozdenko confirmed the Novosaratovka hit specifically, reporting three people injured. Wildberries' own press service acknowledged strikes on both the Shushary and Utkin Zavod facilities. Meanwhile, drone threat alerts for the Leningrad region had been active since 11:15 p.m. the night before, suggesting Ukrainian operators flew a long, complex approach that threaded the needle of Russian air defense coverage.
In Tver — roughly 170 kilometers northwest of Moscow — footage from approximately 2:30 a.m. showed a large fire consistent with a warehouse strike, with OSINT channels pointing to a Wildberries facility as the target, though local authorities had not officially confirmed the specific structure by the time of filing, according to RBC-Ukraine. Crimea was struck as well, with a Wildberries logistics center in occupied Simferopol also reporting damage, per Kyiv Independent.
The cumulative picture is striking. Per ISW's July 23 assessment, Ukrainian forces struck 196 Russian naval vessels — including oil tankers and bulk carriers — in the Black and Azov seas between July 6 and 22 alone. The drone campaign against Wildberries, running in parallel, suggests Kyiv has settled on a dual-track strategy: cripple Russia's military-adjacent maritime logistics while simultaneously degrading the civilian distribution networks that keep Russian domestic morale from cratering entirely. Whether this constitutes a war-winning approach or simply a costly and prolonged war of economic attrition remains the central unresolved question — and by Kyiv's own figures, Ukrainian losses on the ground remain severe even as the drone campaign extracts a visible toll on the Russian rear.
Russia continues to advance in Donbass. Will a campaign to create stress for the Russian civilian population lead to a win for Ukraine on the battlefield? Doubtful. However, it will harden the resolve of the Russian population.
