On the night of August 26, 2026, unmanned aerial vehicles struck the Wildberries logistics hub in Kotovsk (Tambov Oblast) for the second time, triggering a major fire at the facility. According to eyewitness reports, at least ten explosions were recorded over a period of roughly 40 minutes, after which open flames broke out in one of the city's districts. Around midnight, monitoring channels issued warnings about a UAV attack threat, and temporary flight restrictions were introduced at Tambov Airport during the same period.
Course of Events and Restrictions
According to information provided by residents and local services, the series of explosions occurred during the night hours and led to a fire on the territory of the logistics center. Following the attack, operations at the Kotovsk Wildberries hub were temporarily suspended. The restrictions imposed at Tambov Airport within the same time frame indicate that the incident was treated as part of a broader aerial threat to the region, rather than an isolated event.
Scale of the Fire and Rescue Operations
At the facility, which covers an area of approximately 108,000 m², the fire is estimated to have engulfed more than 100,000 square meters. Fire crews were deployed on site, and, as reported, a pre-emptive evacuation of personnel was carried out within the center in accordance with safety requirements. According to available information, one employee was injured as a result of the current attack; no confirmed data on fatalities in this incident had been received as of the time of publication.
Strategic Significance of the Facility
The Kotovsk warehouse is one of Wildberries' key logistics facilities in Central Russia. The hub began operations in 2025, and once it reached full capacity it was to provide storage for up to 54 million items. A repeated strike on a facility that had already survived an attack earlier this year underscores the vulnerability of large distribution centers and potentially affects supply chains in the region.
Contradictory Data
When covering the incident, it is important to distinguish between two separate events. Open sources mention that on July 18, 2026, the Kotovsk center had already been struck, after which a fire broke out at the facility, operations were suspended, and, according to several reports, seven employees were killed. The current nighttime attack on August 26 is a separate incident: its outcome confirms a fire across most of the area and one injured employee, while there is no information on fatalities in this particular attack. Thus, the figure of "seven killed" refers to the July event and should not be conflated with the consequences of the August strike; the discrepancies in estimates of the fire's scale (facility area of ~108,000 m² versus "more than 100,000 m²" of fire) are broadly consistent and reflect flames covering almost the entire warehouse territory.
The incident has become the second serious strike on one of the network's largest distribution nodes in recent months. The further developments — the extent of the damage, the timeline for resuming hub operations, and the final data on casualties — will be clarified as fire crews complete their work and official statements are issued.
