Ukrainian drones struck logistics and industrial sites across Russia's Moscow Oblast on the morning of 28 July, according to monitoring channels and local authorities. Fires broke out near Podolsk and in Chekhov, while Russia's biggest online marketplace said its own warehouse kept running. Russian officials claimed air defenses downed hundreds of drones.
Aimed at Russia's Amazon, the hit landed next door
Early on 28 July, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ started reporting drone activity over Moscow Oblast. Over the next hours it posted photos, video, and its own read of the target. The channel judged the strike as a likely attempt on the large Wildberries logistics center in Koledino, south of Podolsk. Air-defense fire, it said, probably pushed the hit onto the third-party warehouse right beside it.
Russian news Telegram channel Astra identified the burning building as that 3PL site. Residents of nearby Podolsk reported explosions and a fire that same morning. Supernova+ backed the account of a hit on the 3PL warehouse.
The operator's own site lists the warehouse at about 10,000 m². It stores goods, packs orders, labels and ships for clients that include Auchan, Magnit, Lenta, Pyaterochka, Fix Price and Detsky Mir. Next to it sits what one industry listing calls the marketplace's largest distribution center, over 200,000 m². Wildberries' press service said the complex was working normally. Monitoring channels still believe the intended target was the Wildberries hub.
Podolsk district head Grigory Artamonov played it down, reporting only a damaged fence at a private house and a fire in a wooded area.
A rubber plant on fire in Chekhov
Video published by Exilenova+ also showed drones hitting an enterprise in Chekhov. More footage captured a fire after a drone reportedly struck a smokestack on a plant's grounds. Astra's analysis placed the blaze at the Chekhov Regeneration Plant. Residents had reported explosions overnight.
The plant recycles worn car tires into regenerate, rubber crumb and powder, and makes more than 600 rubber goods. By its own account, it is one of Russia's biggest producers in the field. Chekhov municipal head Mikhail Sobakin confirmed the attack, saying rubber had caught fire at the plant and crews were putting it out, with several buildings in the city damaged.
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin first claimed 12 drones downed near the capital around 5 a.m. He later put more than 390 aircraft over the region between 20:30 and 6:30, saying air defenses hit most "on distant approaches" and 81 near Moscow. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed its air defenses downed 356 Ukrainian drones overnight, across a dozen regions plus the Moscow area, occupied Crimea and the Azov Sea. None of the figures could be independently checked.
Deep-strike campaign continues
Since 18 July, Ukrainian drones have hit at least ten of the marketplace's centers, in Elektrostal, Kotovsk, Krasnodar, Nevinnomyssk, Voronezh and Yekaterinburg. The previous successful strike came on 24 July, at complexes near St. Petersburg, in Leningrad Oblast and in occupied Simferopol. On 20 July, drones struck the Wildberries center in Podolsk and an oil depot in nearby Lvovsky, both catching fire, as the effort widened from oil refineries to retail and industry.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has earlier explained the strikes on the "Russian AliExpress" by saying Moscow uses the platform to bring in sanctioned drone and navigation parts.
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