Ukraine hits Russian retail warehouses

Ukraine has attacked two more warehouses of Russian online retailer Wildberries, its boss said yesterday, extending a series of drone strikes on a company at the heart of Russia’s consumer economy.

Tatyana Kim, the co-founder and head of Wildberries, said warehouses had been attacked in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk, both in southern Russia.

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Social media footage, verified by Reuters, showed a huge plume of smoke rising into the air in Krasnodar. The regional governor said a young woman had been killed and three other people were being treated in hospital.

The attacks on Wildberries’ massive warehouses mark a new stage in Ukraine’s campaign of deep strikes inside Russia to undermine Moscow’s war effort and bring the conflict home to ordinary Russians.

Ukraine, whose own cities are under constant attack, says it is hitting companies and infrastructure that support the Russian military. President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday described the latest targets as logistics hubs involved in supplying Russian forces with drone components and other equipment.

The Kremlin has denied Wildberries handles military supplies. Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s logistics hubs as well as its energy system and power grid.

Meanwhile, Zelensky on Tuesday evening named a young major general, Mykhailo Drapatyi, as the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s military after days of street protests, marking the biggest shake-up in the country’s military leadership since its war with Russia began.

Zelensky replaced Oleksandr Syrskyi, 60, with Drapatyi, 43, a respected and experienced commander who led the country’s land forces from 2024 to 2025 and is described as a general of a new generation, reports AFP.

Last week, Zelensky’s government reshuffle and dismissal of tech-savvy reformist Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, 35, after just half a year in office, stirred concerns among analysts that Ukraine’s recent battlefield momentum could be lost.

Ukraine has been trying to gain the upper hand in the war by heavily striking Russia’s energy sector - its main source of budget revenue - and logistics.

“The operations of the Ukrainian Defence Forces are ongoing and must continue steadily. Ukraine’s plan for long-range sanctions and our program of middle-range strikes will be carried out with absolute precision,” Zelensky said as he introduced Drapatyi.

The surprise government reshuffle last week led to a political crisis that exposed weaknesses in Ukraine’s domestic governing due to the lack of elections during the war.