Russian e-retailer Ozon says Ukrainian drone alert forces it to evacuate Tatarstan warehouse

(Reuters)

MOSCOW, July 31 – Russia’s second-largest e-commerce company, Ozon , said on Friday that it had been forced to evacuate its warehouse in the town of Zelenodolsk in ​the Tatarstan region due to a Ukrainian drone alert.

The evacuation took just a few minutes to ‌complete and there were no casualties. The logistics centre was undamaged and has since resumed operations, the company said.

A video verified by Reuters showed a plume of white smoke rising next to a blue-coloured Ozon warehouse. Another unverified video posted on social media showed ​warehouse workers hurrying out of an Ozon warehouse and watching as a drone crashed into the ground some ​distance away with a loud

Ukraine has attacked at least a dozen warehouses belonging to ⁠Ozon’s main rival, Wildberries, since July 18 in a bid to disrupt the operations of the company, a ​linchpin in Russia’s consumer economy.

Ozon warned on Thursday of potential risks to its own infrastructure, and some analysts suggested it was just ​a matter of time before Ukraine began targeting Ozon warehouses too.

Ozon and Wildberries warehouses are located next to each other in many locations – including Zelenodolsk – and it was not clear on Friday which of the warehouses Ukraine was targeting.

Ukrainian drone forces commander Robert Brovdi posted ​a cryptic message on Telegram on Friday however, which looked like a reference to Ozon in which he said that “the ozone concentration ​exceeds the critical norm.”