Ukraine 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.
