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Ukraine has targeted logistics centres belonging to the Russian equivalent of Amazon, with the drone strikes early Wednesday sparking huge infernos.
Warehouses of the country's largest online retailer Wildberries were attacked in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk, said Tatyana Kim, the head and co-founder of the company.
Kim said employees had been evacuated before the strikes, but several people were still wounded.
'I wish you a speedy recovery, and we will definitely provide all the necessary assistance,' she wrote on Telegram.
Footage circulating on social media, verified by Reuters, shows gigantic clouds of black smoke rise up into the sky above the burning warehouses.
The strikes came hours after Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed the country's army Commander-in-Chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi.
The move followed the removal of popular Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov - a decision that triggered nationwide street protests.
In a dramatic U-turn following the demonstrations, Zelensky said Fedorov would be brought back into government in a 'worthy position in power'.
Ukraine has recaptured 270 sq miles of its territory this year, outgoing Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi, 60, said on Wednesday, confirming he was leaving the top military job.
'I am handing over to my successor an army that is not only holding the defence but is also on the offensive,' Syrskyi said in a statement on Telegram.
'I am not authorised to talk about some of the operations we carried out over these years, even today. History will tell about them,' he added.
Zelensky said on Tuesday that a young major general, Mykhailo Drapatyi, would replace Syrskyi after days of street protests.
Drapatyi, 43, is seen as ready to embrace to a greater degree drone warfare and the use of high-tech and AI on the frontline.
Syrskyi has held the Commander-in-Chief position since early 2024, after playing key roles in Kyiv's defence in the early days of the war and in a lightning counteroffensive to retake swathes of the northeastern Kharkiv region in 2022.
But he has faced harsh criticism for a rigid command style which some service members have said resulted in unjustifiably high troop losses.
His removal followed the ousting in a wider government reshuffle last week of tech-savvy reformist Defence Minister Fedorov, 35, which brought out into the open the deep divisions in the Ukrainian defence leadership.
Syrskyi was nicknamed 'The Butcher' for his readiness to defend the frontlines leading to human losses.
Zelensky was forced by public pressure to make the change and will now face rising demands to restore Fedorov as defence minister.
Fedorov lost his job last week after demanding Syrskyi should be replaced.
Drapatyi has argued that Ukraine can better defend itself with a greater use of the country’s new high-powered drones and missiles, developed during the war.
The Wildberries online marketplace bases in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk were ablaze in fires likely to cost more than £1 billion in damages.
Ten people were wounded in the Krasnodar strike.
The attacks directly hit Vladimir Putin’s already struggling economy and likely increased pressure on him to start peace talks.
At the weekend two other Wildberries hubs were struck, in Elektrostal near Moscow, and in Tambov region, causing £1.5 billion in damages.
The Elektrostal centre was left in ruins.
Ukraine accuses the Kremlin-linked retail giant of supplying Putin’s military machine.
Wildberries is owned by Putin-backing Kim, Russia’s richest woman with a £6.1 billion fortune.
A firefighting helicopter was called in to tackle the massive blaze in Krasnodar, capital of the region of the same name which is home to three of Putin's palaces.
Thick black smoke rose from the two warehouse complexes which are 148 miles apart.
The fires at the fourth and sixth largest Wildberries bases in Russia illustrate another failure for Putin’s air defences.
The Krasnodar base was 1.65 million sq feet and in Nevinnomyssk the base was 1.3 million sq feet.
One desperate supplier to the retail giant said: 'Many will wake up bankrupt today.'
A resident of Nevinnomyssk in Stavropol region pleaded: 'Putin - end this war now.'
A major oil depot was also ablaze at Armavir in Krasnodar region after being attacked by a swarm of at least 16 Ukrainian drones.
The attack - in which one person died - was aimed at causing further oil shortages in Russia where petrol and diesel queues are commonplace, stifling the economy.
And occupied Crimea was hit by blackouts after the latest Ukrainian strikes on power plants in the Black Sea peninsula.
Russia overnight struck a Nova Poshta logistics centre in Odesa, and the city’s port.
The attacks on Russia’s Amazon are seen as revenge for Russia’s relentless strikes on multiple Nova Poshta bases.
Five people including three children were injured in a Russian strike on the Kyiv region.
Drapatyi, the commander of the joint forces responsible for the Ukrainian defences in the northeastern direction, is described by his colleagues as a general of a new generation whose career was shaped in combat against Russian troops.
During his 26 years in the army, he rose through the ranks from a tank lieutenant to one of Ukraine's most effective combat commanders.
Last week, in a rare public post, he said the Ukrainian army needed changes and new rules.
'I believe in the Ukrainian armed forces, which are capable of learning, developing technology, protecting people and allowing commanders to take responsibility for the outcome,' he said on Facebook in a post supporting the sacked Fedorov.
Drapatyi has fought Russian troops in Ukraine for more than a decade. He became famous in 2014 during fighting in the Donbas when he shouted 'Go!' at the driver of an armoured fighting vehicle in Mariupol and tore through a Russian barricade on a mission to rescue besieged police officers.
That same year, he led an encircled force that fought its way through Russian territory to freedom.
After Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, he became the go-to commander for areas of the front where the situation was most dire and in need of a swift turnaround.
In summer 2024, he stopped a Russian incursion near the city of Kharkiv, stabilised the front line, and soon after became the youngest-ever commander of the Ukrainian land forces, one of the most senior posts in the Ukrainian army.
As the commander of the land forces, Drapatyi tried to implement reforms, revamping the recruitment and training systems.
He then said that he wanted to support initiative and flexibility among front-line troops, seeing it as a strength, unlike some other Soviet-trained generals in the Ukrainian army.
But his tenure was short.
When Russia struck an army training centre in June 2025, killing at least 12 and wounding dozens of Ukrainian soldiers, Drapatyi resigned, saying he felt personally responsible for the tragedy: 'An army in which commanders bear personal responsibility for people’s lives is a living force. An army in which no one is held accountable for casualties is dying from within.'
His resignation then stunned many in Ukraine. Shortly after that, he was appointed to the lesser but more combat-focused role of joint forces commander.
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