Putin is looking weak after latest attacks on ‘Russia’s Amazon’ ...Middle East

For Vladimir Putin, it must seem like a painful case of déjà vu.

With Russia gearing up for parliamentary elections next month, Ukrainian drones once again struck deep into the country, setting ablaze one of the warehouses belonging to Wildberries – Russia’s version of Amazon that has become an increasingly conspicuous target of Kyiv’s long-range campaign.

The overnight assault on Sunday was one of the largest drone attacks on the Moscow region, according to regional governor Andrei Vorobyov. Images of the attack show vast plumes of black smoke engulfing the sky. The facility is barely 15 miles from the centre of Moscow.

Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said that more than 600 drones were intercepted heading for the capital. Russian state media put that number at 822, citing the country’s defence ministry. It is not clear how many got through.

Sobyanin called it the biggest air raid on the Russian capital in two years.

Wildberries, a digital marketplace used by millions, with a sprawling network of warehouses, has been repeatedly dragged into a war in recent months, creating an awkward problem for Putin, who has long tried to keep the war at arms length from most Russians.

Ukraine’s defense ministry said that its recent operations had disabled seven of the ten largest logistics centers belonging to the Russian e-commerce giant. It said the latest attack took out a 250,000 sq metre logistics centre employing 13,000 people.

It also said it hit a missile fuel production facility in the Rostov region of western Russia on Sunday night.

Wildberries lists military and dual-use products on its platform, including items like drone components, navigation equipment, first aid supplies and body armour. Ukrainian officials have therefore described the company’s warehouses as legitimate targets.

BREAKING:Ukrainian long-range drones just obliterated the largest Wildberries logistics center in all of Russia.A massive fire has engulfed the entire 250 000 sqm logistics center in Koledino in the Moscow region. 13 000 people were employed there. pic.twitter.com/KEwfGqMJnR

Samuel Greene, a professor in Russian politics at King’s College London, said Ukraine has been “fairly careful to try to avoid sort of overtly civilian targets in their attacks on Russian territory. But Wildberries has left itself open to a certain extent because they do traffic in military or dual-use goods”.

“Given that a lot of Russian troops essentially end up being responsible for their own equipment, it is plausibly a military or a quasi-military target,” he added. The company and the Kremlin deny that Wildberries has supplied the Russian army.

Ukrainian officials have made clear that the attacks are intended to put pressure on the economic infrastructure underpinning Russia’s war.

Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert and historian, told The i Paper that the attacks on Wildberries infrastructure were significant as it “is very much this idea of taking the war to the Russian household”.

“Just think if in the UK, all of a sudden Amazon deliveries were dramatically affected, how many households would feel that?” “So it is part of a psychological and political war to try and get Russians thinking that maybe they want this war to end, because it’s proving inconvenient to them.”

Wildberries is proving a valuable pressure point for Ukraine.

Reuters has estimated that recent strikes have destroyed almost 30 per cent of Wildberries’ warehouse space, with economic losses running into billions of dollars. The company is also reportedly uninsured against terrorism-related damage, leaving sellers exposed when their stock is destroyed.

And Moscow does not appear to have found an obvious solution, with a string of strikes having hit the company’s facilities since July and previous attacks causing deaths and injuries and disrupting operations.

The Kremlin has condemned Ukraine’s attacks as terrorism. “The Kyiv regime keeps hitting civilian targets, and that’s the terrorist essence of the Kyiv regime,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month.

Russia has, nonetheless, been striking back, launching its own air strikes overnight that killed eight and injured at least 39, according to Ukraine.

But Kyiv’s strategy appears increasingly designed to demonstrate that Russia cannot conduct its war without experiencing consequences at home.

This matters particularly now, with Russia heading towards State Duma elections next month. This is not an election that is likely to produce a surprise defeat for Putin, but regardless, elections are moments when the Kremlin wants to project stability, competence and control.

Instead, Ukraine is demonstrating that it can send drones towards Moscow in numbers large enough to overwhelm the country’s defences, with fires erupt at facilities belonging to one of Russia’s most recognisable companies.

For a president whose political brand rests heavily on strength and security, this is proving to be an embarrassing spectacle.

“This is a bad moment for Putin, but I think we have to not undermine his control of the country,” said Galeotti. “His approval ratings are still high – by his standards they’re low, but by any Western politician’s standards, they are ridiculously high because obviously it’s this artificial situation.”

Adding to Putin’s problems are new reports that British-made drones have been used in Ukrainian deep-strike missions inside Russia over the past six months, marking a significant development in UK-Ukrainian military co-operation.

According to The Times, Ukrainian forces have used BAE Systems Nyan jet-powered drones, alongside another British-made system. A senior Ukrainian military source told the newspaper that most deep-strike missions still rely on Ukrainian drones, but that British systems have also achieved “significant success”.

Russia has invested enormous resources into its air defence, but can’t protect every target across its vast geography from relatively cheap weapons that can be launched in swarms.

The worry is that this could lead to an escalation, with Russia targeting more civilian infrastructure in Ukraine or pushing back on its Western allies. But for the moment, four and a half years into the war, Ukraine appears to have Putin on the back foot.

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