Defense Intelligence: Strikes on online retail hubs add economic pressure on Russia

Defense Intelligence: Strikes on online retail hubs add economic pressure on Russia Ukraine's successful airstrikes in Russia, whose newest targets in recent weeks have included warehouses of internet platforms, are significantly damaging the aggressor's economy, the Estonian Defense Intelligence Center says in its Friday overview. "Such strikes amplify the deterioration of the business climate in Russia, and the index describing it fell in July to –3.6 points according to the Russian central bank — the lowest figure since mid‑2022. Although President Putin tried again this week to give the impression that Russia's economy is not doing too badly — in May the economy grew by 0.3 percent according to him — Ukraine's long‑range strikes are reshaping that reality," the intelligence center's weekly report states. Over the past seven days, a new category of targets has been added to Ukraine's strikes: warehouses of the company Wildberries, which were attacked in Moscow and Tambov oblasts and in Krasnodar and Stavropol krais. The latest such strikes occurred overnight near St. Petersburg. Although Russia's largest online retail platform Wildberries is not directly a military enterprise, it mediates the sale of military equipment such as bulletproof vests and other protective gear, uniforms, drones and their components, and units of the Russian armed forces and supporting individuals buy all kinds of equipment from it. "Wildberries and its competitor Ozon are used by a large part of Russia's population, and Ukraine's strikes therefore have a significant effect in addition to the direct economic damage, which may reach two billion dollars. The impact of Ukraine's strikes is illustrated by the fact that in 2025 the total value of goods sold by Wildberries equaled roughly three percent of the Russian Federation's gross domestic product (GDP)," noted Estonian military intelligence. -- Editor: Mait Ots, Argo Ideon