The Ukrainian military struck warehouses belonging to Russia's largest online retailer, Wildberries, in the third attack targeting such facilities in a week, as Kyiv continues to expand its retaliatory long-range strike campaign in an effort to force Moscow into negotiations.
The company's CEO and owner, Tatyana Kim, reported that facilities in the southern cities of Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk were hit in the Ukrainian strikes. Local authorities said at least 10 people were injured.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the attacks, saying that they targeted logistics centers "involved in supplying the Russian military with drone components, navigation equipment, and other gear."
Pictures and videos posted online show pillars of smoke rising from the area where Wildberries warehouses are located.
The latest strikes on the retailer mark a flurry of such attacks in recent days, with Ukrainian drones targeting its facilities in the Moscow and Tambov regions. Those hits left eight workers dead.
Often referred to as Russia's equivalent of Amazon, Wildberries started as an online retailer of apparel from European catalogs. Since then, it has expanded into a marketplace featuring a wide range of products sold by third-party vendors.
The developments come as Kyiv steps up its deep strikes on energy and military infrastructure inside Russia, attacking facilities up to 1,000 kilometers from its border.
With such distances becoming reachable for Ukrainian drones over the past year, David Sharp, an Israeli-based military expert, told Current Time that Russia's thinly spread and often "unprepared" air defense forces "simply do not match the threats they currently face" from Kyiv.
"Russia is a vast country with a great many potential targets," Sharp said, adding that once Ukrainian drones or missiles cross both the front line and the country's state border, "it becomes increasingly easier for them to reach their intended targets."
Referred to by Zelenskyy as "long-range sanctions" against Moscow, recent Ukrainian attacks have caused nationwide fuel shortages in Russia, stoking discontent among Russians who were previously unaffected by the war, now well into its fifth year.
Besides Wildberries warehouses, Zelenskyy said on July 22 that Ukraine targeted an oil depot and a tanker inside Russia, adding that Moscow "must be forced to move towards diplomacy."
"It is entirely fair that we are bringing the war back home -- to Russia. Peace is needed, and Ukraine has put forward all its proposals to the Russian side," he wrote on Telegram.
Still, the two countries remain far apart in their negotiating terms. The Kremlin is sticking to its hard-line stance and offering no compromise on control of Ukraine's key eastern region of Donetsk, while continuing to launch daily air attacks across the country.
On July 22 alone, Ukrainian military forces reported that 216 drones and four missiles were launched by Russia overnight. The strikes killed at least one person in the southern port city of Odesa and left at least five more injured in Kyiv, including three children.
According to local authorities, residential, office, and storage buildings were damaged in the attack, while emergency services rushed to extinguish the fire.
