Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky visits troops on the Oleksandrivka front, August 26, 2026
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Wednesday’s Coverage: Kyiv Renews Strikes on “Russia’s Amazon” Wildberries
UPDATE 0959 GMT:
MSC Mediterranean Shipping, the world’s largest container shipping company, has halted new bookings to and from Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
The company announced the suspension after one of its vessels was attacked by a drone.
MSC operates a fleet with a total capacity of 7 million 20-foot equivalent units.
UPDATE 0947 GMT:
Ukrainian drones struck two more logistics hubs of Ozon, Russia’s second-largest online retailer, overnight.
Ukraine launched the attacks on Okon last week. Five logistics facilities have been hit.
Ozon maintained that the warehouse in Ufa sustained only “minor damage”; however, it is closed and not accepting deliveries from vendors. The distribution center in Orenburg has resumed operations but will not accept some goods during the day.
The strikes on Ozon follow those on Russia’s largest online retailer Wildberries, which have caused billions of dollars of damage since mid-July. Company CEO Tatyana Kim, who was Russia’s richest woman, has lost around $2 billion of her estimated $8.1 billion fortune.
UPDATE 0937 GMT:
Russia has been unable to restore the oil refining capacity knocked out by Ukrainian drone attacks.
In July, petroleum product production increased by 5.6% compared to June. However, the year-on-year decline only narrowed to 19.3% from 21.7% in June, the sharpest drop since at least 2005.
Russia has banned gasoline and diesel fuel exports; stepped up imports from Belarus and Kazazhstan and taken them from India for the first time; extended tax breaks to imported fuel; and allowed the sale of gasoline meeting outdated standards.
In mid-July, output from Russian refineries fell to a 21-year low of 3.8 million barrels per day. August’s output is expected to around 4 million bpd.
UPDATE 0931 GMT:
A Russian lieutenant colonel has been killed in a car bombing in St. Petersburg this morning.
The colonel died instantly around 10 a.m. His wife is in intensive care in serious condition.
The assassination is the third of a high-ranking Russian military officer this month.
UPDATE 0638 GMT:
A pro-Kremlin hacker group claimed responsibility on Wednesday for a cyber-attack on Digdir, the Norwegian Government’s digital services agency.
The denial-of-service attacks tried to overwhelm the agency’s computers to block public services. A Digdir spokesperson said the agency still managed to maintain operations “practically all the time”.
The hacker group Server Killers said it attacked because Norway renewed its security cooperation with Ukraine on August 23.
UPDATE 0636 GMT:
Ukraine has freed 10 Russian prisoners of war, confirmed Russia’s human rights commissioner on Wednesday.
On Monday, Russia released 10 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were thought to be missing.
UPDATE 0603 GMT:
Russia fired ballistic missiles across Ukraine overnight, with at least six explosions heard in Kyiv around 3 a.m.
Debris was later found in the capital’s Podilskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts.
Explosions were also reported in Odesa and Zaporizhzhia. At least seven people, including three children, were injured in the attack on Zaporizhzhia and surrounding districts.
Serhii Lysak, head of the Odesa City Military Administration, said infrastructure, an educational institution, and a high-rise residential building were damaged. No casualties were reported.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the frontline on Wednesday, as he appointed two commanders to oversee and strengthen defenses against Russia’s invasion.
Zelensky and commander-in-chief Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi travelled to Oleksandrivka on the southern front, where Ukrainian forces have reclaimed 745 square km (288 square miles) in recent weeks.
Oleksandrivka is at the juncture of the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions.
In the east, Ukraine has held the “fortress belt” of industrialized cities in Donetsk against years of assaults during the 54-month full-scale invasion.
The Russians are trying to close on the cities of Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk, and Sloviansk, escalating air and artillery attacks.
Zelensky said Third Army Corps commander Andrii Biletskyi and Denys Prokopenko, commander of the First Corps Azov, will head new groupings to organize defenses.
In July, Zelensky appointed Drapatyi as commander-in-chief, replacing Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi. The latter had been criticized for micro-management and “Soviet-era” tactics, in contrast to Drapatyi’s emphasis on the technology of 21st-century warfare.
The President said Ukraine hit 16 sites in Russia in 24 hours, including oil facilities, logistics sites, airfields, a missile unit, a military enterprise, and infrastructure.
Ukraine set afire Russia’s fourth-largest refinery, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, and a logistics hub of the leading online retailer Wildberries.
