{"id":641147,"date":"2026-07-25T13:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T13:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=641147"},"modified":"2026-07-25T13:20:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T13:20:00","slug":"ukraines-drone-campaign-against-the-russian-amazon-is-driven-by-political-motives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=641147","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine’s Drone Campaign Against The ‘Russian Amazon’ Is Driven By Political Motives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukraine’s Drone Campaign Against The ‘Russian Amazon’ Is Driven By Political Motives<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Andrew Korybko,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The goal is to create a growing class of malcontents by inflicting major harm to small business owners who might then shift the electoral odds against the ruling party ahead of September\u2019s next elections and later possibly form the core of a future protest movement that could be exploited from abroad.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s US-assisted long-range drone campaign against Russia has\u00a0recently begun targeting<\/a>\u00a0the country\u2019s online retailer Wildberries, which is essentially the \u201cRussian Amazon\u201d, <\/strong>with recent strikes either totally destroying or greatly damaging several of its logistics centers. The\u00a0Financial Times<\/a>\u00a0cited\u00a0Russia\u2019s edition of Forbes<\/a>\u00a0to report that these attacks might have already destroyed 150-275 billion rubles\u2019 worth of inventory thus far, equivalent to around $2-3.5 billion, or more than Wildberries\u2019 net profit last year.<\/p>\n

They also importantly cited Alexander Kolyandr, a director at Eurasia Group, who told them that \u201cThe loss of the goods will put thousands of traders out of business, resulting in unpaid taxes, defaulted loans and the like.\u201d<\/strong><\/em> Therein lies the political motive behind Ukraine\u2019s drone campaign against the \u201cRussian Amazon\u201d. Zelensky announced a\u00a040-day influence operation<\/a>\u00a0against Russia late last month with the objective of coercing it into a ceasefire without any concessions from Ukraine or its Western patrons.<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll formally end in early August, so nearly six weeks before the next Duma elections in late September, the first since the\u00a0special<\/a>\u00a0operation<\/a>\u00a0began as the last ones were in 2021. His influence operation will likely be extended, however, even if only informally. With this political context in mind as well as the explicitly stated goal that he aims to achieve, it\u2019s clear that Zelensky authorized his forces to do whatever they can to maximally inconvenience average Russians for the purpose of turning them against Putin.<\/p>\n

This explains the prior spree of strikes against Russian energy infrastructure, which led to a\u00a0spike in fuel costs<\/a>\u00a0that Ukraine expected would raise prices across the board due to higher transport costs for slashing average Russians\u2019 disposable income, and the Wildberries campaign is the next phase. <\/strong>Harming small businesses more directly affects average Russians, both buyers and of course sellers, and the particular intent appears to be to create a new and growing class of malcontents within the country.<\/p>\n

If taken to its extreme, and it\u2019s possible that more logistics centers will be targeted and at least damaged since 18 of the 20 largest in Russia are\u00a0reportedly within range<\/a>\u00a0of Ukrainian drones, this could have long-term socio-political and economic consequences for Russia. The state, which is already under financial strain due to the combination of sanctions, attacks against its energy infrastructure, and the recent large-scale destruction of small business\u2019 taxable inventory, might thus be pressured to bail them out.<\/p>\n

Inadequate support for struggling small business owners could shift the electoral odds against the ruling party in what would then be spun as a symbolic setback to Putin, create the earlier mentioned class of malcontents, and thus possibly rekindle long-dormant protest potential that could be exploited from abroad.<\/strong> The consequences could therefore cascade in the worst-case, which admittedly isn\u2019t likely since the state still has time to avert it, so it\u2019s premature to expect this yet it also shouldn\u2019t be ruled out either.<\/p>\n

The larger trend is that Ukraine\u2019s spree of strikes against Russia is gradually evolving\u00a0from showmanship into strategy<\/a>, assisted as it\u2019s been by the US, which provides targeting intelligence and overall guidance to its proxy. \u201cTrump 2.0\u2019s Escalation Strategy Against Russia Is Starting To Take Shape<\/a>\u201d, and it\u2019s centered on a \u201cwar of attrition<\/a>\u201d that\u2019s now setting its sights on largely civilian targets like Wildberries, the aim of which is to advance political goals that are in any case unlikely to get Putin to declare a ceasefire.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSat, 07\/25\/2026 – 09:20<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ukraine’s Drone Campaign Against The ‘Russian Amazon’ Is Driven By Political Motives Authored by Andrew Korybko, The goal is to create a growing class of malcontents by inflicting major harm to small business owners who might then shift the electoral odds against the ruling party ahead of September\u2019s next elections and later possibly form the… Continue reading Ukraine’s Drone Campaign Against The ‘Russian Amazon’ Is Driven By Political Motives<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":641148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-641147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=641147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/641148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=641147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=641147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=641147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}