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Ukraine hammering 'Russian Amazon' retailer Wildberries · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ukraine has struck yet another logistics hub belonging to the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Russian retailer Wildberys in the city of Volgograd. Drones have
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  Speaker 1: hit more than a dozen sites in the past few
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  Speaker 1: weeks in a bid to disrupt the company's operations. Some
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  Speaker 1: call warberry Is the Russian Amazon. It is a lynchpin
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  Speaker 1: of the country's consumer economy. Kiev claims the Warberi's facilities
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  Speaker 1: are legitimate military targets because they supplied Russia's frontline troops
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  Speaker 1: in Ukraine. Moscow, however, denies that Ukrainian drones hit one
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  Speaker 1: facility south of Moscow on Wednesday, forcing staff evacuations and
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  Speaker 1: halt in deliveries. The company says about ten percent of
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  Speaker 1: its storage capacity has now been destroyed, with tens of
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  Speaker 1: thousands of dollars in losses. Joining me now, Alexikobolev, an
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  Speaker 1: investigative reporter and independent journalists, good to see you, sir.
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  Speaker 1: Ukraine has now carried out repeated drone strikes against Warburi's
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  Speaker 1: warehouses across Russia. What's the thinking behind focusing on this
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  Speaker 1: one company so consistently?
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  Speaker 2: Hi there, good morning, and yes it's a very smartly
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  Speaker 2: chosen target. Because obviously the Moscow will deny that it
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  Speaker 2: that it's legitimate as one. But if you look at
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  Speaker 2: very if you take a very cursely look at the
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  Speaker 2: company's catalog, it's pretty obvious that it sells a lot
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  Speaker 2: of military not just military coded like you know, coffee months,
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  Speaker 2: military themed and other merchandise, but actual combat tested armor
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  Speaker 2: plateses drohne components that including those that don't have any
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  Speaker 2: plausible civilian use at all, like specialized drop rigs for
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  Speaker 2: drones for dropping position specific kinds of Russian grenades. And
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  Speaker 2: it's pretty much out there in the open. So you
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  Speaker 2: can flip through thousands and thousands of items like that
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  Speaker 2: that has been specifically promoted as supplies for our troops
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  Speaker 2: in the field, and you have in the reviews, you
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  Speaker 2: can clearly see that the purpose people are buying this,
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  Speaker 2: all this merchandise for like armor vests and helmets and
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  Speaker 2: goggles and FPV drawn components, that people are buying it
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  Speaker 2: with one purpose in mind only, and they're quite explicit
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  Speaker 2: that this is the this is the product that is
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  Speaker 2: sorely needed at the firm line in what Russia calls
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  Speaker 2: its special military operation. So the purpose of thousands and
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  Speaker 2: maybe tons of thousands of these items on salted wild
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  Speaker 2: berries is pretty clear, and it's not one of purchases.
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  Speaker 2: It's obvious that this has been going for a while
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  Speaker 2: and there are specialized vendors selling only military equipment, despite
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  Speaker 2: the fact that all of this goes against the company's
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  Speaker 2: own terms of services. They adopted one about a couple
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  Speaker 2: of weeks before they deferred the first attacks, and they
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  Speaker 2: simultaneously prohibited the vendors on the platform from selling any
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  Speaker 2: merchandise of military purpose and also prohibiting sales of that.
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  Speaker 2: So the company is still selling all of those items
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  Speaker 2: as we speak, despite the fact that they violate they
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  Speaker 2: are in terms of services.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, these rikes aren't just affecting the military. They are
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  Speaker 1: disrupting many people's lives and small businesses to all across Russia.
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  Speaker 1: What sort of impact would that have internally within the country,
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  Speaker 1: do you think?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the biggest impact is of course of the consumer economy,
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  Speaker 2: because tens of millions of Russians depend on wild berries.
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  Speaker 2: It's much more than Amazon. I think that it's replaced
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  Speaker 2: a big chunk of retail trade in Russia in general.
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  Speaker 2: And also it's just so pervasive. There is a pickup
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  Speaker 2: point in almost every residential be able to across the
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  Speaker 2: entire Russian that's eleven times old. So it's indeed one
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  Speaker 2: of the most effective logistical companies in Russia. And it's
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  Speaker 2: selling millions of items every day and delivering it everywhere
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  Speaker 2: from the westernmost Russia all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
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  Speaker 2: And you have to be a very efficient logistics company
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  Speaker 2: in order to be able to do that. And there
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  Speaker 2: is also another aspect to this is that Wilberries in
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  Speaker 2: fact has Russian military has outsourced parts of its procurements
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  Speaker 2: onto private contractors such as Wilberries. Of course it's not official,
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  Speaker 2: but it's an ad hoc decision by many units. There
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  Speaker 2: are many Russian military units that are occupying in the
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  Speaker 2: Grain who have been experiencing shortages in all kinds of equipments,
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  Speaker 2: from ammunition to even to body bags that they have
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  Speaker 2: to they have to ask their civilian supporters to buy
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  Speaker 2: on Wilberries and delivered to these frontline units because the
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  Speaker 2: Russian defense ministry itself kind of is chron chronically unable
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  Speaker 2: to plug all the gaps in logistics and supplies, and
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  Speaker 2: that's where be kind of grossroot supporters of war there
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  Speaker 2: are a lot of them in Russia, and they pulled
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  Speaker 2: together the money and they post out crowdfunding drives for
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  Speaker 2: specific units in the Russian military, listing specific items on
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  Speaker 2: wild berries. There is a lot of genuinely double dual
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  Speaker 2: use stuff, like a lot of medical supplies, for example,
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  Speaker 2: but some are very explicitly crowdfunding for very obvious military
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  Speaker 2: equipment like a body armor and helmets and FPV drones
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  Speaker 2: that are quite clear that have got used in combat context,
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  Speaker 2: not for for for not for racing, because you don't
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  Speaker 2: really need a spool You don't need it, really need
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  Speaker 2: a spool of optic fire of the optic fire cable
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  Speaker 2: twenty miles long to be engaged in hobby hobby drone racing.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: President Job is having second thoughts about allowing Ukraine to
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  Speaker 1: produce a key air defense weapon. He told The Financial
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  Speaker 1: Times on THIRSDS he's not sure he'll give Kiev a
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  Speaker 1: license to make Patriot missile interceptors. He promised he would
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  Speaker 1: do that a NATO summit earlier this month. Ukraine is
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  Speaker 1: facing a shortage of Patriots, the only weapon that can
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  Speaker 1: stop Russia's most advanced ballistic missiles. Mister Trump spoke hours
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  Speaker 1: after a massive attack on Ukraine which killed at least
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  Speaker 1: nine people and wounded more than fifty others. Poland says
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  Speaker 1: what appears to be a Russian missile crashed and exploded
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  Speaker 1: deep inside its territory during those strikes. Poland is a
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  Speaker 1: NATO member, but a military official told CNN there are
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  Speaker 1: no plans to discuss a joint response by the alliance.
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  Speaker 1: European leaders have condemned the attack, but Ukraine's prejudic says
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  Speaker 1: condemnations can only go so far.
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  Speaker 3: European countries have made numerous statements, particularly regarding the Russian
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  Speaker 3: missile that flew into Polish territory and exploded somewhere in
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  Speaker 3: a field near Lublin. Most importantly, however, it's not just
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  Speaker 3: about condolences or condemnation. It's about providing air defense.
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  Speaker 4: Missiles precisely the kind of pressure around Russia that can
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  Speaker 4: stab this senseless Russian war, all their attacks and their terror.
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  Speaker 4: This war could have ended long ago, but Putin doesn't
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  Speaker 4: want that.
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  Speaker 1: But one of the questions is did that missile end
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  Speaker 1: up in Poland by mistake or was Moscow trying to
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  Speaker 1: test NATO. CNN's Nick Payton watsh has more on that
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  Speaker 1: for US.
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  Speaker 5: It's a complex task for Poland to respond in a
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  Speaker 5: way to something the intentions of Russia around which are
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  Speaker 5: obviously unclear. Now, there are a lot of coincidences here
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  Speaker 5: that need to be examined. This is a cruise missile
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  Speaker 5: that flew ninety kilometers into Poland's meaning for several minutes
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  Speaker 5: it was being presumably seen on Russian radars, Polish radars
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  Speaker 5: F sixteen, scrambled by Poland and other aircraft that didn't
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  Speaker 5: actually intercept it. It seems to have crashed landed, leaving a
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  Speaker 5: ten meter wide grater. That is a remarkably deep incursion. Secondly,
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  Speaker 5: it's an incursion that happened about thirty one mons to
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  Speaker 5: the north of where Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and
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  Speaker 5: Ukrainian President Vodamzelenski had met just a matter of hours earlier.
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  Speaker 5: That's something of a coincidence, and also comes to after
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  Speaker 5: weeks of warnings in which Western officials have been concerned
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  Speaker 5: about Russian escalation. We really can't divine Russia's intention here.
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  Speaker 5: Was this a deliberate test of NATO's resolve and defenses
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  Speaker 5: with something relatively new here We've not seen a CRU's
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  Speaker 5: missile landing in NATO territory really for years here unprecedented
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  Speaker 5: or is it simply one of seventy missiles fired by
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  Speaker 5: Russia that night going astray or being caught in some
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  Speaker 5: kind of jamming potentially going off course. But this ultimately
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  Speaker 5: had many Russian and lissay is part of the strategy
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  Speaker 5: sometimes to see what Russia can indeed get away with.
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  Speaker 5: And indeed, if this was an accident, use it to
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  Speaker 5: observe the nature of NATO's response. And while Polish Prime
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  Speaker 5: Minister of Donald Tusk has said he does not believe
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  Speaker 5: polar was the target here, it's clear that the Russians
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  Speaker 5: would have been observing the nature of NATO's responsive jets
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  Speaker 5: scrambled but no interception. And Poland has it publicly been
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  Speaker 5: under pressure because of its decision to supply some patriot
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  Speaker 5: missile interceptors to Ukraine who urgently need them to its east,
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  Speaker 5: leaving perhaps its own stocks low, joining a global shortage
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  Speaker 5: of these exceptionally vital interceptor missiles. And so this is
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  Speaker 5: clearly a moment in which NATO have to simultaneously show
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  Speaker 5: resolve and resilience to prevent this from being something Russia
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  Speaker 5: tries again if indeed it was intentional by a Russia,
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  Speaker 5: while at the same time not sounding the alarm for
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  Speaker 5: domestic clamor for some kind of more muscular response, that
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  Speaker 5: itself a complex task that yet again also emphasizes the
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  Speaker 5: nightly threat. Ukraine indeed is under seventy missiles fired, the
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  Speaker 5: number of ballistic and cruise missiles fired by Russia now
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  Speaker 5: exceptionally high compared to a matter of months ago, and
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  Speaker 5: of the two hundred and eighty drones fired Ukraine, the
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  Speaker 5: intercepted two hundred and sixty, still a death toll of
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  Speaker 5: at least nine, six of whom from one family, the Vodnovs,
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  Speaker 5: living not far from kriv Rick and the Dnipro region.
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  Speaker 5: Their house hit four children amongst the dead. They're part
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  Speaker 5: of a civilian toll that is growing. I think it's
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  Speaker 5: fair to say the month of July the deadliest since
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  Speaker 5: April twenty twenty two, four hundred and twenty seven Ukrainian
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  Speaker 5: civilians killed. Russia clearly escalating the toll it wants to
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  Speaker 5: take on Ukrainian civilians. Here the number of missiles, ballistic
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  Speaker 5: and cruise that it's using against Ukraine, perhaps sensing a
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  Speaker 5: gap in their interceptor capability. They're well known public here
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  Speaker 5: Zelenski in Washington desperately hoping to get more interceptors, they
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  Speaker 5: want to make them themselves. That hasn't actually happened yet,
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  Speaker 5: and so I think a crisis of winter potentially increasingly
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  Speaker 5: in the mind of Ukrainian leaders here as they see
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  Speaker 5: these months of summer involving so many more Russian missiles
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  Speaker 5: and that threat towards Eastern Europe increasing