Ukrainian drones attacked two Ozon logistics centers overnight on 27 August, one in Ufa and one in Orenburg Oblast, Russia's second-largest online store said. Staff were evacuated at both sites, and preliminary information indicated no casualties. Video published by Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ shows a drone reaching the Bashkortostan warehouse and exploding.

The strike on camera

Exilenova+ reported in the morning that an Ozon warehouse was burning after impacts in Blagoveshchensk, a town north of Ufa. The Bashkortostan capital lies roughly 1,300 kilometers from the war zone in Ukraine. Around midday the channel published eyewitness video of what it called the moment of a drone attack on the site, and said the warehouse had not caught fire. The footage shows a drone reaching the site and detonating there.

Earlier, the channel reported that residents of Sterlitamak, Bashkortostan's second-largest city, about 120 kilometers from Ufa, had written about explosions, with nothing then known about impacts. Astra later placed smoke over what it said was probably the Bashkir Soda Company works there.

Ozon said the Orenburg site—about 1,200 kilometers from the war zone—has resumed work. The one it placed in Ufa sustained what it called minor damage but remains closed, because the grounds need a thorough inspection. It is not accepting deliveries.

Russian news Telegram channel Astra identified the damaged facility from the eyewitness footage as Ozon's UFA_RFC fulfillment center in Blagoveshchensk. When it opened in late 2024 it was billed as the largest Ozon logistics complex in Russia's Volga federal district, with a total area of 93,000 square meters.

Smoke over the Ufa refineries

Astra also traced smoke in eyewitness footage to the Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim refinery in Ufa. The plant is one of Rosneft's leading refineries and a dual-use site: it supplies specialized fuel to Russia's armed forces and petrochemical feedstock for defense-grade materials. It burned after a strike on 1 August.

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What officials said, and didn't

Bashkortostan's authorities did not report the attack. Orenburg Oblast governor Yevgeny Solntsev mentioned drone danger in his region but gave no account of consequences. Ufa closed its airport.

Russia's Defense Ministry claimed air defenses destroyed 267 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones overnight across Russian regions, Bashkortostan among them.

The campaign so far

Ukraine's warehouse campaign began with Wildberries, Russia's largest online marketplace, which lost eight warehouses and roughly 860,000 square meters of storage in July alone. It reached Ozon for the first time on 22 August at Chapayevsk in Samara Oblast, where more than 500 employees evacuated and people were hurt. Four more Ozon hubs were hit across southern Russia two nights later.

Shares in Russia’s second-largest bank VTB fell to an all-time intraday low of just under 50 rubles ($0.60) on 26 August, RBC’s exchange data showed. That was more than 40% below the 87-ruble (about $1) price set for a share sale partly intended to finance its Wildberries partnership. At that price, offering participants would pay about 75% more than investors buying the same shares on the stock market.

VTB’s drop came amid a wider decline in Russian stocks. Kommersant’s market report said analysts also linked the fall to VTB’s own large new share issue.

Share issue could cut existing stakes by one-third

Under the bank’s offering plan, VTB could issue almost one new share for every two already in circulation. If VTB sold the full amount, an existing shareholder who bought no new shares would see their ownership stake fall by about one-third. VTB planned to finish the sale and close its Wildberries deal by 1 September.

The bank expected to raise 300–400 billion rubles ($3.6–$4.7 billion). VTB said it had assembled a group of large investors willing to participate but would not disclose who they were. Those investors would receive the same class of shares traded on the Moscow Exchange, but at the price fixed by VTB.

VTB described the partnership primarily as a route into Wildberries’ 80 million users—more than twice the bank’s own customer base. VTB would initially acquire a 5% stake in Wildberries’ banking arm, with the option to increase its holding later.

Reuters described both companies—Wildberries and rival Ozon—as central to Moscow’s plans to use online commerce as an engine of economic growth.

VTB held its price as shares fell

On 9 July, VTB kept its price even after the stock had fallen well below the offering price. The bank said its large, long-term investors were willing to look past short-term price swings.

On 16 July, VTB hit another low as investors prepared for its dividend cutoff and the new share issue. The first drone strikes on Wildberries warehouses followed two days later.

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VTB’s first-half results showed that its profit fell by one-fifth from a year earlier. In the second quarter, the bank set aside 28% more for troubled loans while its profit fell by one-third.

After the attacks, Moscow considered supporting Wildberries and its sellers, with VTB expected to play a central role. VTB shares fell 2.5% on 28 July amid uncertainty over the partnership. “If we receive such a request, we will, of course, be open to various forms of lending support,” VTB’s first deputy CEO Dmitry Pyanov told Reuters.

Norway's Air Force has put its first counter-drone system into service at Ørland, the country's only combat aircraft base, NRK reported. A launcher now stands beside the runway where Norway's F-35 stealth fighters are parked, bought specifically to bring drones down. The deployment follows a wave of drone sightings across Europe last autumn and will be phased in at other Norwegian bases.

The launcher came from the British company ISS Aerospace and works as one of several effectors inside a system the military calls Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems, or C-UAS. Radars and other sensors spot the drones first. It is built to protect fixed installations against drones weighing up to 150 kilograms, and it can either jam a machine or destroy it. Ørland already has NASAMS air defenses, the Norwegian-American missile system Ukraine also uses, but firing interceptor missiles at small drones is expensive and described as shooting sparrows with cannons.

"We received a system in the spring, which we are introducing now, and it gives us a hugely increased capacity in drone defense," said the head of the counter-drone unit at the base, Sondre Steinsvik.

What pushed it forward

Police reported observations of possible drones near the base in September last year, part of a wider wave across Europe that also closed Oslo airport. Trøndelag police later concluded the lights had most likely been blinking celestial bodies. The purchase was already underway, but the sightings accelerated it, and the new sensors are meant to make such calls easier in future. Ørland's mayor said at the time the drone defense was arriving far too late.

Small drones have become easily available, are relatively easy to smuggle in or rebuild locally, and could potentially do serious damage to aircraft parked in the open, according to Lars Peder Haga of Norway's Air Force Academy, who said that from a defense standpoint, such purchases can never move fast enough.

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Next bases, and Norway's own drones

Evenes air station, which handles Norway's quick-reaction alert mission among other duties, is among the sites due to receive it, NRK reported. Parliament's long-term plan set aside nearly $2 billion for drones, electronic warfare, and autonomy through 2036.

The base has also built a drone troop of its own, flying machines for search and mapping, with the aim of arming them to strike other drones. 

"That is the direction we want to go. We see it is very effective in Ukraine," said the head of the base defense battalion, Tormod Overland.

All of Lukoil’s major refineries in Russia are now offline after a Ukrainian drone strike halted crude processing at its NORSI plant on 26 August, Reuters reported the shutdown. NORSI is Russia’s fourth-largest refinery and second-largest gasoline producer.

Ukraine’s General Staff said it had struck the refinery in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, where a fire subsequently broke out. It said the refinery helps supply Russia’s armed forces.

Industry sources told Reuters that several processing units and other plant infrastructure had been damaged. No repair timetable is available, and Lukoil did not respond to the agency’s request for comment.

NORSI can process about 15 million tons of crude annually and produce about 5 million tons of gasoline and more than 5 million tons of diesel, according to Reuters.

A Reuters dispatch in The Moscow Times said Lukoil listed no NORSI-made gasoline, diesel, or other petroleum products for sale on the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange after the shutdown.

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NORSI’s closure followed the complete shutdown of Lukoil’s Perm refinery after a 21 August drone strike. The company’s Volgograd plant had already stopped processing on 31 July.

The Moscow Times listed four previous occasions this year when drone strikes stopped NORSI from processing crude: 5 April, 20 May, 24 June, and 2 July. The latest attack, therefore, produced the plant’s fifth drone-related shutdown in less than five months.

Lukoil also operates a smaller refinery in Ukhta, which remains active.

Kremlin threatens retaliation

Nizhny Novgorod Oblast Governor Gleb Nikitin wrote that Russian forces had “repelled” more than 40 drones. He also reported damage to an unnamed industrial enterprise, several homes, and cars.

A day later, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov promised a “harsh response” to Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s economic and trade infrastructure.

Russia is facing its second bout of fuel shortages this summer. Gasoline sales limits have returned to Moscow and St. Petersburg, while Rosneft has capped purchases at 30 liters per vehicle across its filling-station network, The Moscow Times reported.

Kommersant reported that Astrakhan Oblast had capped gasoline purchases at 30 liters and was serving drivers according to odd- and even-numbered license plates. Orenburg Oblast introduced a similar system and capped purchases at 30 liters to preserve supplies for emergency services and public transport, Governor Yevgeny Solntsev announced.

Five days before NORSI stopped, the Russian government ordered officials to distribute available fuel more evenly between and within regions. Russia also plans to extend its diesel export ban through September as refinery outages constrain domestic supplies.

Belarus is fitting a new base near its border with Ukraine to receive heavy military hardware by rail, according to Radio Svaboda, the Belarus service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. On paper it is a training ground—but the leaked design documents describe a site built to unload trainloads of vehicles. The work is moving ahead even as Belarusian commanders have begun saying there is no real threat from the West.

Belarus keeps adding permanent military infrastructure on its Ukrainian frontier even as its own commanders now drop the Western-threat case behind it.

A rail line sized for military trains

Construction is under way near the village of Yakimaŭka in Homiel Oblast, the part of Belarus that runs along Ukraine's northern edge. Radio Svaboda reported that the new rail infrastructure is designed to receive military trains. The finding rests on project documents obtained by a community of Belarusian railway workers.

The papers describe a separate access track sized for up to 60 railcars and a cargo platform with a ramp for unloading wheeled and tracked vehicles. A state military-design institute, Vaenpraekt, is listed as the client.

A base for a new assault brigade

The papers pin the range only to Homiel Oblast, but Radio Svaboda links it to a wider military complex built near Homiel since late 2023. That complex is the planned home of the 37th separate air-assault brigade of Belarus's Special Operations Forces. Cadastral maps split it into an eastern "military town" and a western "training-tactical field."

Alyaksandr Lukashenka's government created the brigade in 2025 to strengthen the country's southern sector, ostensibly against a threat from Ukraine. Part of the military town was reported finished in June 2026, and crews have since moved to the rail tracks.

Belarus drops its own threat talk

For months, Belarusian officials have claimed the West was preparing to attack. In June 2026, the Minister of Defense of Belarus Viktar Khrenin pressed the line at a meeting of defense ministers from the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Moscow, and again at an "anti-fascist congress" in Minsk, where he accused Europeans of a "Nazi mentality."

Khrenin told Lukashenka the situation around Belarus was calm, with no sign that neighbors were preparing to act. On 16 August, the commander of Belarus's air force and air defense, Andrei Lukyanovich, said there was no external threat and that operational contacts with Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were ongoing.