Ukraine war briefing: Ozon next in Kyiv’s sights as sheds of Wildberries rival burn
Putin decree lets Russian state scoop up companies that come under attack; ‘dig into our stocks’ of Patriots, British PM urges allies. What we know on day 1,644Ukraine has targeted four more warehouses of Ozon – Russia’s second-largest online retailer after Wildberries, which has itself been crippled by Ukrainian attacks. Ozon’s shares fell by almost 30% on Monday after it reported strikes in southern Russia that brought to six the number of its facilities targeted within three days. Ozon said a logistics hub in Makhachkala in Dagestan was on fire and had halted operations after a drone attack in which “several people” were injured. Another was on fire in Enem on the outskirts of the city of Krasnodar, while workers were evacuated from warehouses that came under attack in Adygeysk, in the Adygeya region, and in Nevinnomyssk in the Stavropol region.In earlier events, drone strikes halted work at an Ozon logistics centre in the Samara region and another in the Orenburg region. Financial analysts said that unlike privately owned Wildberries, which has the backing of state-owned bank VTB, Ozon’s main shareholder AFK Sistema has a large debt and is unlikely to provide substantial support. Before the latest Ozon attacks, Vladimir Putin promised state help in the restoration of warehouses “at a new technological level” and asked the government to design a programme to help the sector. The EU imposed sanctions on Ozon’s and Wildberries’ financial units on 24 July.Putin has geared up the Russian state to seize control of companies like Wildberries and Ozon, as well as fuel companies and transport operators, by deeming them too poorly protected from Ukrainian attacks. Special powers set out in a presidential decree will allow the state to take charge of them at a time when Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on oil refineries and e-commerce warehouses. The state will be able to seize physical and financial assets, and assume formal ownership rights, if entities responsible for such facilities are judged to have failed to protect them and are too slow to repair them after any attack. It applies to fuel, energy, industrial, communications, transport and logistics facilities and other objects regarded as critically important for security and economic stability.The Ukrainian military struck a Russian Mig-29 fighter plane and two Russian vessels in the Black Sea, Ukraine’s drone forces commander Robert Brovdi said on Monday. It is the third Russian warplane hit in two days. Brovdi said on the Telegram app that one of the vessels attacked was a tanker and the other was a bulk carrier. Ukraine’s military struck a Russian military plant at Kamensky in the Rostov region, causing a fire, the Ukrainian general staff said. The plant produces solid rocket fuel for Russian weapons.The Perm oil refinery, Russia’s seventh-largest by volume, has shut down after a Ukrainian drone attack on 21 August, two industry sources told Reuters. The primary CDU-4 unit, which accounts for almost 40% of the plant’s capacity, stopped working on that day. Repair works could take between one and two weeks. Another primary refining unit, CDU-5, which accounts for 34% of the plant’s capacity, has been idle since a 29 July drone attack. Lukoil, which controls the refinery, did not reply to a request for comment. The plant usually makes millions of tonnes of petrol and diesel.Andy Burnham urged Ukraine’s allies to “dig into our own stocks” to provide it with more Patriot interceptor missiles, saying it “needs more help to protect its people right now”. The British prime minister chaired his first meeting of the “coalition of the willing” in Kyiv as Ukraine celebrated its independence day. Burnham said the coalition was “doing everything we can all do and working with our allies outside of this coalition to dig into our own stocks and help others dig into their stocks”. He called on the US Congress to “ratchet up” economic pressure on Russia as it struggles with a record budget deficit and declining oil revenues.Ten Ukrainian prisoners of war who were thought to be missing in action have been released in a prisoner exchange, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. He did not mention Russia in his statement, saying only that the prisoners had been released via Belarus, one of Moscow’s closest allies. Russia did not immediately say if Kyiv had returned soldiers in the exchange. Continue reading...
The Guardian view on Britain helping Ukraine: build the weapons independence Kyiv needs | Editorial
Moscow hopes western politics will weaken support for Kyiv. The UK and Europe’s answer should be to make Ukraine increasingly capable of defending itself aloneThe events of the past few days on Europe’s borders may mark a turning point in Russia’s war on Ukraine. While the political skies in Kyiv have darkened for Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the military picture looks brighter. Ukraine can already send swarms of drones against Russian oil facilities, e-commerce warehouses and airfields. Andy Burnham’s arrival in Kyiv marks a step forward. Britain is releasing classified information on its components of Scalp, the French version of the Anglo-French Storm Shadow cruise missile, enabling its assembly in Ukraine. This is more than another weapon for Kyiv. Britain is helping Ukraine become less dependent on the western armoury.Moscow sabre-rattles, but Britain should hold its nerve. Kyiv has been at the mercy of its allies, waiting to replenish weapons stockpiles and release sophisticated arms. Producing its own hi-tech armoury gives Ukraine greater freedom of action because western governments have let go. Two years ago it was different. Joe Biden waited until November 2024 before letting Ukraine strike deep into Russia with US weapons. Yet thresholds once deemed dangerously escalatory have since been crossed without provoking a Russia-Nato war. Kyiv is now being trusted with something more consequential: a measure of weapons independence.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
