Moscow (AFP) – Ukraine has struck warehouses belonging to Russian e-commerce giant Ozon on consecutive days, with the firm reporting another logistics site set aflame on Monday. Ukraine has for weeks mounted a campaign targeting Russia’s Wildberries — the country’s top online retailer — alleging it supplied components to the military. Ozon is Russia’s second-largest online marketplace, with its pick-up points and delivery boxes ubiquitous across the country. Both companies have been dubbed “Russia’s Amazon,” due to their control over a huge swath of the fast-growing e-commerce sector.
Ozon said on Monday that a “major fire” was burning at one of its logistics centres in the southern Krasnodar region after a drone attack. “All systems operated as designed, and we promptly evacuated staff. Preliminarily, there are no casualties,” the company said in a Telegram message. On Sunday, Ozon reported that a fire had broken out at its logistics hub in the central Orenburg region after a drone attack. “Operations at the warehouse are currently suspended,” the company added.
The strike came a day after an Ozon centre in the neighbouring Samara region was hit. The company said an unspecified number of its workers were wounded in that attack. Ukraine’s military on Saturday said it was launching a new campaign targeting the company. “After Ukrainian units hit the 15 largest logistics hubs of Wildberries, it is now Ozon’s turn,” the defence ministry said in a statement. A logistics centre next to an Ozon facility on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg was also hit.
The attacks on the warehouses — typically easier to reach than heavily defended military installations — have already delivered economic losses worth billions of dollars. Several facilities were packed with flammable products and were destroyed by the attacks. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday pledged support for Wildberries amid the strikes, saying the government would help rebuild logistics hubs hit by Ukrainian attacks. Russia has railed at the attacks on its “civilian infrastructure” more than four years into its full-scale offensive on Ukraine that has killed thousands of civilians and flattened cities across the country’s east and south.
© 2024 AFP
