Ukraine hits 'Russia's Amazon' warehouses outside St Petersburg

Ukrainian drones Friday hit warehouses for Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries for a third time in six days, this time near Saint Petersburg, triggering a fire that sent smoke pouring over the historic city.   

Kyiv has accused Wildberries -- Russia's largest online retailer often known as the Russian equivalent of Amazon -- of storing drone parts and helping the Russian army.

Ukraine has targeted Saint Petersburg as it steps up long-range drone strikes on Russian energy, military and logistics sites in recent weeks, calling the attacks justified retribution for Moscow's nightly drone and missile barrage of its cities.

Russia's defence ministry said its forces shot down some 571 drones overnight over more than a dozen regions and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014 -- one of the largest one-night barrages of the war.

In Saint Petersburg, an AFP reporter saw grey smoke rising into the morning sky over high-rise residential buildings in the city, President Vladimir Putin's hometown that is more than 800 kilometres (500 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Wildberries said two of its logistics facilities in Saint Petersburg and one in Simferopol, in Moscow-annexed Crimea, were hit.

"Rapid evacuation was carried out at all the warehouses ... according to preliminary data, there are no casualties," Wildberries CEO Tatyana Kim said on social media.

Alexander Drozdenko, governor of the surrounding Leningrad region  said three people were wounded in the attack, which saw at least 59 drones fired towards Saint Petersburg.

It was the third overnight attack by Ukraine on Wildberries' sites in the past week.

Last weekend, eight night-shift workers were killed in attacks on Wildberries sites that saw one of the company's main warehouses outside Moscow burn to the ground.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky alleged after the first attack that the facilities were used to "supply sanctioned components for drone production and navigation equipment."

Hundreds of small businesses saw their inventories wiped out in the strike, triggering angry comments on social media.

Kyiv calls its strikes "long-range sanctions", saying the attacks are justified retribution for Russia's more than four-year offensive and nightly attacks on its cities.

The campaign has triggered nationwide fuel shortages and, Kyiv says, dented Russia's financial war chest.

Columns of thick black smoke were still billowing into the sky from one of the factories hours after the hit, an AFP reporter saw.

Russian President Vladimir Putin spent the first years of the war trying to shield the population from the fall-out of his decision to launch the offensive on Ukraine.

But the strikes on oil refineries have triggered fuel shortages and big attacks near major cities have brought the dramatic visible consequences of the war into the homes of many Russians.

Firefighters and investigators had been deployed to the sites in Saint Petersburg as the blaze raged through the morning, Russian officials said.

Saint Petersburg's Pulkovo airport suspended flights during the attack, resuming operations around 06:00 (0300 GMT), with around 50 departures disrupted.

Both Russia and Ukraine have escalated their long-range strikes in recent months.

Moscow's forces have fired increasing numbers of ballistic missiles at Kyiv -- killing dozens and ripping open apartment blocks.

US President Donald Trump has appeared to give his backing to Ukraine's counter-attacks on Russia -- calling the strikes "an escalation that can lead to an end".

Washington's attempts to mediate a peace deal between the warring sides have largely stalled with its own war on Iran raging.

The United Nations has reported a surge in civilian deaths in 2026, saying June was the deadliest month since mid-2022.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale offensive in February 2022 -- though there is no precise toll with neither side routinely revealing the number of their losses.