A firefighting helicopter prepares to drop large amounts of water on a fire at the logistics facility of Russian e-commerce company Wildberries near the town of Podolsk on the outskirts of Moscow on August 16, 2026.
Tatyana Makeeva | AFP | Getty Images
Russia launched an attack overnight targeting Ukraine’s port infrastructure in the southern region of Odessa, authorities said Monday, after one of Ukraine’s biggest air strikes of the war.
Olev Kiper, governor of southern Ukraine’s Odesa region, said an airstrike in the Izmail region damaged a Togolese-flagged civilian vessel and injured four people.
Located near the Romanian border, Izmail is Ukraine’s largest port on the drought-stricken Danube River and plays a key role in the country’s trade and transportation networks.
According to Reuters, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it also targeted military targets inside the port, including a “berthing terminal” for military cargo, a hangar housing Western military equipment, and a warehouse for naval drones. CNBC could not independently verify this report.
Reports of the Russian attack came after Ukraine attacked Moscow over the weekend in one of the largest drone strikes of the war. Russian authorities said Sunday they had shot down a record 1,478 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours, killing at least six people overnight.
As part of the attack, a massive fire gutted a distribution warehouse belonging to Russian Amazon-type retailer Wildberries near Moscow, authorities said.
The Ukrainian military said seven of Wildberries’ 10 largest logistics hubs are now out of operation, with facilities rendered unusable as a result of the strike.
As Kiev seeks to inflict fresh pain on Russia’s economy, Ukraine is stepping up its attacks on Wildberry, signaling a new phase in the four-and-a-half year war.
Wildberries is a major player in Russia’s e-commerce sector, with the retail giant’s market alone accounting for about 3% of Russia’s gross domestic product, according to the Ukraine Center for Security and Cooperation, a Kyiv-based think tank.
