The attacks began on a July weekend and have continued for a month, stretching from Moscow and St. Petersburg, to cities in the south, and eastward to the Ural Mountains. The targets weren’t oil refineries, maritime hubs or arms plants hit by other Ukrainian strikes, but warehouses that bring the convenience of online shopping across the breadth of Russia.
Ukraine’s drones have pummeled the giant depots belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise and bringing the war home to the broad public.
The attacks on about 20 Wildberries facilities have underlined Kyiv’s ability to strike far and wide inside Russia and posed a new challenge to President Vladimir Putin nearly 4½ years into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
They have badly shaken the empire built by Tatyana Kim, the country’s richest female entrepreneur, whose fortune has been estimated at $8.1 billion.
It should be stressed that Ukraine isn’t attacking WB instead of attacking refineries, logistics, and shipping. They’re doing it in addition.
Warehouses are a soft, easy target. And, like oil facilities, you’re counting on the goods themselves to do most of the destruction with a little incendiary help. Ukraine has a large supply of slow, cheap suicide drones and this is a good use for them. You force Russia to move air defenses away from the front, absorb economic and financial losses, and remind regular “non-political” Russians that they’re at war. Also, you minimize collateral damage because unless workers are killed in the initial attack, they’re likely to escape the conflagration that accounts for most of the damage.