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These were sentiments expressed by more than one Russian internet retailer as a relentless drone campaign against Wildberries, Russia’s analog to the US online retail giant Amazon. For the third day in a row, these drone attacks have now expanded to several other cities besides Moscow.
Flipping through social media sites today produces video clips of one Russian seller after another screaming or crying in anger that they have lost their entire investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Other videos show a continuation of the previous days’ coverage as more Wildberries warehouses went up in flames.
Those lamentations are being spoken by some of Russia’s leading retailers, who remind those watching that – as with all the other companies’ massive retail storage sites – none of the merchandise inside is insured, and everything inside is a total loss.
Millions of roubles in stock have disappeared overnight along with years of hard work spent building these businesses.
But it is more than just financial trainwrecks that are the consequences of these Ukrainian attacks that are hitting an increasing number of well-healed – as well as many working, aspiring businessmen – where it hurts them most: in the wallet.
These disastrous losses are convincing an increasing number of Russians that their government and its military have zero capability to protect the country’s important industrial facilities and other entities.
Ukraine has already proven that it can hit any vital Russian industrial site in what is becoming a months-long series of attacks on Russia’s oil industry and other military targets.
That target set is now expanding to include the entirety of Russia’s logistics networks.
A Storm Is Coming
And these targets now include commercial firms like Wildberries, which was – in addition to fashion wear, mobile phones and air conditioners, etc. – also supplying the Russian military’s drone industry with millions of items sourced from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
These include navigation systems, electric motors and endless miles of fibreoptic cabling.
But also being stored in the warehouse were numerous products for the Russian military that would be shipped directly to volunteers headed for the front lines. Items like body armor, boots, uniforms and night-vision gear.
As these attacks continue for several days, the list of cities with distribution centers that have now been destroyed stretches from Moscow and the Tambov region to Krasnodar and the Stavropol region.
As one headline quoting a top Russian businessman reads today, “an enormous ****storm is coming.”
“That’s it, guys. Many people will wake up bankrupt today because the warehouse in Krasnodar has burned down. It is still burning,” another Russian man said in a video posted online today. “Friends from Krasnodar say it is completely f***ed,” he added. “What should we do? We don’t know.”
We Are Tired of the “Special Military Operation”
The answer to “what should we do” may present itself sooner rather than later in the form of these resentments boiling over.
There is no end to skeptics who still doubt the possibility of a national revolt taking place against the Russian state.
A sentiment expressed in recent weeks by many of those who have suffered in one aspect or another is one that vocally derides the “Special Military Operation” or “SVO” (СВО) in its Russian acronym.
That was the label that Russian President Vladimir Putin used to euphemistically announce the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The same invasion that was supposed to be over in three days.
“I already want this ‘special military operation’ to end,” said one of many businessmen speaking openly to Russian media outlets in the wake of these warehouse attacks.
“So many people are dying, and so many entrepreneurs are suffering. We now need to file reports with the tax authorities.
I don’t know what to say or what to do.”
Such open criticism of their government’s conduct of the war was rarely heard until recently due to a persistent program executed by Russia’s secret police apparatus to stamp out any such “subversion”. It now appears that Russians are angrier and resentful – as well as frightened of what can come next – than they are intimidated by the prospect of being arrested and jailed.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor's degree from DePauw University and a master's degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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