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MOSCOW: Waves of Ukrainian explosive-laden drones on Saturday pounded e-commerce warehouses in the Moscow and Tambov regions, killing eight people and causing large fires that blackened the skies with thick smoke for hours.

Kyiv has in recent months intensified its strikes on Russian territory, disrupting the lives of ordinary Russians — strikes it calls retribution for more than four years of bombardments against its territory.

The campaign, which Kyiv calls “long-range sanctions”, has mostly targeted Russia’s oil infrastructure and triggered a full-blown fuel crisis in one of the world’s biggest oil-producing countries.

This time, Ukraine struck two key warehouses of Russia’s biggest online retailer Wildberries, killing eight night-shift workers and sparking fires that all but destroyed the facilities. “A terrible night, terrible events for our company and for our country. It is a pain that cannot be put into words,” said Wildberries CEO Tatiana Kim.