Drones Strike Novokuibyshevsk Refinery and Ozon Hub in Samara Region

Drone strikes targeted Russia’s Samara region early Saturday morning, Aug. 22, resulting in a fire at the Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery and reportedly hitting a major logistics hub for the e-commerce company Ozon. The Novokuibyshevsk refinery, part of the Rosneft structure, has a design capacity of approximately 8.8 million tons of oil per year. The facility has been targeted by drones previously, leading to temporary suspensions of operations.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. As of the time of reporting, Samara Region Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev had not officially confirmed the strike on the enterprise or detailed the extent of the damage. Simultaneously, reports emerged on social media channels regarding an attack on an Ozon fulfillment center in Samara. The Supernova+ Telegram channel published video footage purportedly showing the moment of impact, while the Exilenova+ channel later reported that a fire continued to burn at the facility. Details regarding the scale of destruction, casualties, or official responses are currently unavailable. Ozon’s logistics presence in the Samara region is one of the largest in the company’s federal network. The 75,000-square-meter fulfillment center in Samara has been operating since 2022, handling the receipt, storage, and dispatch of seller merchandise. Ozon is one of Russia’s two largest marketplaces, alongside Wildberries, and ranked third in turnover among Russian retailers in 2024. Together, the two platforms control the majority of the country’s online trade, accounting for 77% of all marketplace orders and over half of all Russian internet retail sales in 2024. Other Topics of Interest Over 70% of Ukraine’s Residential Buildings Ready for 2026-27 Winter Season Kyiv says decentralization and backup capacity will be central to keeping heat and water services operating. By the end of 2025, Ozon managed 5 million square meters of logistics infrastructure across Russia and former Soviet countries. Billions in losses for Wildberries The expansion of strikes to Ozon follows a month-long, sustained campaign targeting the logistics infrastructure of its main competitor, Wildberries. During the Aug. 17-18 attacks on the Moscow region, a Wildberries warehouse in Bogorodsky caught fire, though the company claimed it was quickly extinguished without damage to goods. This followed a massive strike on Aug. 16 that completely destroyed the company’s 230,000-square-meter complex in Koledino (Podolsk), reportedly Wildberries’ largest hub. Data Insight analyst Sergey Semko estimated that goods worth 78 billion rubles ($918 million) were destroyed in that single fire. Ukraine began targeting Wildberries infrastructure on July 18. Over the subsequent month, at least 22 of the marketplace’s warehouses were hit, representing the loss of about 2.395 million square meters of warehouse space, or 43% of Wildberries’ total capacity. As of mid-August, analysts from Data Insight and the Association of Suppliers of Goods for Trading on Electronic Platforms estimated the value of goods destroyed across all affected Wildberries warehouses to be between 445 billion and 700 billion rubles ($5.2 billion to $8.24 billion). The Ukrainian Defense Ministry stated on Aug. 16 that recent operations had disabled seven of Wildberries’ 10 largest logistics centers. Kyiv maintains that the marketplace is a legitimate military target because dual-use items, such as first-person-view (FPV) drones, have been available for purchase on the platform, which Wildberries denies. The extensive damage has raised concerns about a potential wave of bankruptcies among the thousands of Russian sellers who depend on the platform’s logistics network. Kyiv Post is Ukraine’s first and oldest English news organization, reporting since 1995. Its international reach – 97% of readers are outside of Ukraine – make it truly Ukraine’s global voice.