President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian government on Wednesday to launch a program to rebuild commercial warehouses damaged or destroyed in Ukrainian drone attacks.
Ukraine has carried out drone strikes against at least two dozen warehouses of Russia‘s top online retailer Wildberries since mid-July, causing explosions and fires that have destroyed a large share of the company’s storage capacity.
Putin, without naming Wildberries specifically, said a number of logistic sites needed state support to rebuild.
“It is essential to ensure that the restoration of damaged facilities is carried out at a qualitatively new technological level,” he said in televised comments to a conference of ministers and business leaders dedicated to the economy.
Putin said Russia’s economy was growing modestly despite Western sanctions and Ukrainian attacks on industrial and infrastructure facilities.
“Of course, such attacks have not caused, and could not cause, critical consequences. However, they do inflict damage. This is obvious, and we fully understand and acknowledge it,” the Kremlin leader said.
Ukraine, whose own cities, ports and logistics hubs are also under attack, accuses Wildberries of supplying the Russian military with drone parts and other equipment. The company has denied the allegations and says strikes on its facilities amount to acts of terrorism.
