Ukraine has once again launched successful drone attacks on Russian soil seemingly without much difficulty.
Footage across social media, showed Ukraine’s latest strikes on logistics centres for Russia’s equivalent to Amazon – an oil refinery and military complex were also targeted.
Experts said Russia is struggling to stop Ukraine’s new tactical shift which has seen Volodymyr Zelensky taking a more offensive stance, bombarding occupied Crimea and mainland Russia with drone strikes thousands of miles from the border.
Drones hit another Wildberries logistics centre in Yekaterinburg in central Russia on Saturday, not far from the border with Kazakhstan.
It is just the latest in an onslaught of attacks on Wildberries sites over the past week. As the biggest e-commerce company in Russia has become a prominent target for Ukraine to cause significant damage and disruption.
In recent days, videos and images from social media have shown plumes of smoke and burning buildings all over Russia, not just close to the border with Ukraine.
Scott Lucas, a professor of international politics at the Clinton Institute, University College Dublin, said the recent strikes indicate a tide has turned in the war.
Smoke billows into the sky in St Petersburg following Ukrainian drone strikes on warehouses belonging to online retailer Wildberries (Photo: UGC/AP)“What Ukraine has been able to show is this increase in capacity, initially with drones. Now they’re doing it on occasion with missiles, which is to inflict severe economic damage, and of course severe constraints on the invasion by hitting oil refineries, hitting terminals, hitting ports, hitting other logistics facilities,” professor Lucas told The i Paper.
‘How much longer can it go on’
Wildberries is one of Russia’s biggest companies, with a reported turnover of 6.1tn rubles (£58bn) last year with roughly 48,000 employees. It controls nearly half of the Russian e-commerce market, according to the Financial Times.
The strikes have reportedly destroyed millions of pounds worth of stock – including from small businesses that sell on the website.
Professor Lucas said before yesterday’s strikes, this assault had already caused damages estimated around $4.3bn (£3.2bn) – reportedly wiping out 10 per cent of Wildberries’ logistics capacity.
He said: “You just wonder how far this can go. Clearly the Russians have not had enough air defence to even protect oil facilities, let alone to protect the logistics hubs, so this is sort of open-ended in how far this could go with Ukraine.
“Drones are relatively inexpensive to make, and you get that direct benefit of causing damage to the Russians and making them rethink how far do you want to press this invasion when you are suffering at home.”
A large plume of smoke rises over St. Petersburg following a Ukrainian drone strike targeting logistics facilities operated by Wildberries, . (Photo by Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)The fact that Russia does not even have the power to protect its oil refineries, let alone its logistics centres, is another indication that Ukraine is moving to a “counter-attack” which Putin is struggling to contend with.
Professor Lucas argued this will also show Donald Trump that Ukraine has the upper hand in the war, convincing him to offer more support to Zelensky and his embattled country.
This could mean he “has space for example to pursue the anti-ballistic missile project with American companies”, as well as the recently announced joint drone production in the US.
As well as the successive strikes on Wildberry facilities, Ukraine’s attacks on oil refineries have caused fuel supply issues in parts of Russia.
Some reports claim as much as 40 per cent of Russia’s refining capacity has been cut forcing it to import fuel from India. The crisis has led to images and videos of Russians queuing for hours to get fuel.
‘Kremlin on the defensive’
According to analysis from the independent Russian open source intelligence project Astra, a Russian military building at an airbase in Engels was on fire following a Ukrainian attack overnight.
It indicates the airfield has become another significant target in the war, with Ukrainian strikes earlier this month also hitting a missile-carrying bomber at the site.
Even further than the Wildberries attacks, professor Lucas said the recent push to destroy Russian vessels in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov has been extremely effective in trying to cut off Russian occupied Crimea and hit Putin economically.
Since 6 July, he said, Ukraine has destroyed nearly 200 ships in those waters off the coast of Crimea.
Now, professor Lucas said, while Ukraine is still carrying out attacks within Russia, something has shifted – “the Kremlin is on the defensive… both economically and politically”.
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