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Political impacts of Ukraine war

The Black Sea is officially unsafe to navigate for ships inside Russian waters.

The warning cites a threat from drones. Russia's exclusive economic zone covers the approaches to several ports, including Novorossiysk – one of the country's key export hubs.

 
For a week now, Ukrainian drones have been attacking vast warehouses that are a crucial part of Russia's biggest online retailer, Wildberries.

Logistics hubs in St. Petersburg were hit overnight Thursday. Video verified by CBC News and Reuters show multiple drones exploding as they crash into the facilities, leading to fires that appear to have totally destroyed the warehouses. It's estimated that billions of dollars worth of goods have gone up in flames.

The attacks started last weekend, one in the town of Kotovsk, some 360 kilometres from the border with Ukraine, and another in the city of Elektrostal, about 50 kilometres east of Moscow. Nine people were killed and 80 others wounded.


What is Wildberries?

Wildberries is often referred to as the equivalent of Amazon in Russia. By some estimates, it accounts for half of all online sales in the country.

Wildberries was launched in 2004 by Kim, a teacher and a young mother at the time, focused, at first, on selling clothes.

Since then, the platform has become an industry leader and household name, allowing big and small businesses alike to sell their goods to customers across the country by storing, shipping and delivering their inventory. In April, Forbes Russia estimated Kim's fortune at $8.1 billion US.

Kim has said that last year, the company had more than 200 logistics facilities totaling over 5.2 million square metres, with plans to build new warehouses this year in Belarus and Kazakhstan, where Wildberries operates as well. It also operates in Russian-held Crimea.

It's not clear how many sellers there are on Wildberries, but estimates are that it is in the range of 500,000 to 800,000.

Russian fashion designer Viktoria Terekhova says she shipped virtually her entire summer collection of children's clothes last week to the giant warehouse in Elektrostal, east of Moscow.

Within a couple of days, it was destroyed in the Ukrainian drone strike. Terekhova says she lost 12,000 items, amounting to about 45 per cent of her company's total inventory, and another 4,000 items in attacks on Wildberries hubs in southern Russia.

Oleg Kondratyev, co-founder of the clothing brand Airbase that manufactures mostly women's tracksuits, said he had lost about five million roubles ($90,000) of stock in the warehouse attacks.

That has placed him in a dire financial position, he said.

"For today, we cannot pay our loans because sales through Wildberries have stopped. Tax payments are not due yet, but they will be soon, and most likely we will not be able to pay those either," Kondratyev said.

Okay, I'm going to say it....Ukrainians are next level.

Imagine needing to divert air defense assets to protect what amounts to Amazon warehouses.

But on the flip side, imagine letting Ukraine blow them all up? inflation is already bad in Russia, take out their largest affordable retailer....ooofff
 
Ukraine is expanding on it's "fuel desert" strategy it's been using in Crimea, into the city of Belgorod.

Seems like USSR 2.0 was already poking this way beforehand - good for the RUS goose, good for the UKR gander ....
 
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