In the early hours of August 26, Ukrainian drones attacked the city of Kotovsk in the Tambov region, regional governor Yevgeny Pervyshov reported. The strike sparked a fire at a Wildberries logistics center, with the blaze covering more than 100,000 square meters.
Staff at the warehouse were evacuated, but one employee suffered a concussion from the blast wave. The marketplace's press service said it had halted new deliveries to the affected logistics center.
The Wildberries warehouse in Kotovsk was previously attacked on July 18, when seven people were killed and 25 others injured. That strike marked the start of a Ukrainian campaign against the company's facilities, which has since affected 23 distribution centers across 16 regions.
The same night, the Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez oil refinery in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region, also came under attack, according to Astra, citing eyewitness video. Ukrainian monitoring channels Supernova+ and Exilenova+ also reported the strike. The refinery is Lukoil's largest, ranking fourth in Russia by capacity and second in gasoline output. It can process about 15 million tons of oil annually and produce 5 million tons of gasoline, supplying fuel to the Moscow region. Drones have hit the facility four times since the start of the year: on July 2, June 24, May 20, and April 5. After each attack, the plant halted operations.
Drones also targeted the Lipetsk region overnight, where a falling drone set a private residential house on fire. Two people died — a man and a 14-year-old child — while two women were injured and hospitalized.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry's summary, from the evening of August 25 to the morning of August 26, air defense systems "intercepted and destroyed" 426 Ukrainian drones over 15 Russian regions and annexed Crimea. Drones were detected over the Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Volgograd, and Moscow regions, as well as the Krasnodar Krai.