Eight warehouse workers killed in deadliest Ukrainian attacks inside Russia for two years

By Daria Tarasova-Markina and Tim Lister, CNN

(CNN) — Ukrainian drone attacks have killed at least eight people at warehouses in Russia, according to regional officials.

Seven of those killed were working at a distribution center at Kotovsk in the Tambov region. The eighth fatality was at a similar center in Elektrostal in the Moscow region.

The attacks are the most lethal Ukrainian strikes reported inside Russia in more than two years.

Both the facilities struck belonged to a Russian company, Wildberries, a major online retailer. Ukraine says the facilities were used in drone manufacture.

Twenty-five people were injured, seven of them critically, in the strike in Tambov, according to the region’s governor, Yevgeniy Pervyshov.

The drones “were equipped with warheads designed to cause a greater number of casualties,” Pervyshov claimed, adding 28 had been shot down.

In addition to the man killed at the plant in Elektrostal, 37 people were injured, eight seriously, according to Andrey Vorobiev, governor of the Moscow region.

Ukraine has acknowledged carrying out the attacks.

“Two major logistics facilities were hit – in the Moscow and Tambov regions, more than 500 and nearly 700 kilometers from the front line,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday.

The facilities were being used “to supply sanctioned components for drone production and navigation equipment.”

“A huge Wildberries warehouse covering 188,000 square meters is blazing brightly,” a Ukrainian military statement said, “and black smoke can be seen for kilometers.”

Video from both sides showed large plumes of grey smoke billowing into the sky.

Wildberries said the fire at the Kotovsk site had been contained.

Ukraine has until now focused its long-range drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure and factories making weapons and military hardware, as well as Russian shipping.

Zelensky said that in addition to the warehouse attacks, an oil facility was also struck Saturday – as were additional targets in the Sea of Azov, the gateway to the Black Sea.

In the past two weeks, Ukrainian drones have struck 172 vessels belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, according to Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.

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