LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Ukraine is expanding its list of targets inside Russia. It repeatedly hit warehouses last week belonging to Russia's largest online retailer, Wildberries. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the new strategy on Sunday. This week, he is headed to Washington to discuss the state of the war with President Trump to tell us how all that's being viewed from Russia. We're joined by NPR's Charles Maynes in Moscow. Good morning, Charles.
CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: OK, start by telling us more about Wildberries and the role it plays in Russia.
MAYNES: Yeah. You know, Wildberries is Russia's version of amazon.com. Jeff Bezos, in this scenario is a woman named Tatyana Kim. She started the company out of her apartment as a schoolteacher on maternity leave back in 2004.
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MAYNES: And as this early Wildberries ad conveys, the business focused on providing creature comforts, like slippers in this ad, to the emerging Russian middle-class. Now, fast-forward a few years and Wildberries is now Russia's largest online retailer. And Kim is Russia's wealthiest woman, valued around 8 billion - that's with a B - dollars.
FADEL: Wow.
MAYNES: So, fundamentally, Wildberries is, or at least has been, a Russian success story - a company, you know, built on an idea that took off rather than, say, proximity to the Kremlin, which can often be the case.
FADEL: So why is it a target?
MAYNES: Ukraine has now struck 10 Wildberries warehouses in different locations across Russia, killing at least nine employees and injuring dozens more. The justification, according to Ukraine is that Wildberries' vast offerings include military hardware. Now, Wildberries denies that charge. But there's no question the website offers, even sometimes advertises items of use to soldiers on the battlefield in Ukraine. So, you know, helmets, night vision goggles, consumer drones, that sort of thing.
That said, Ukrainian officials also say this is about bringing the war home to the Russian public in a new way. You know, we've already seen these Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure that have caused gas shortages. Well, now Ukraine is targeting commerce, logistics hubs, because Wildberries is part of this consumer ecosystem that's made living in Russia feel relatively normal despite more than four years of war and western sanctions.
FADEL: What's the reaction been from Russians?
MAYNES: Well, these attacks, you know, on logistics hubs have caused massive fires. And those images are spreading all over social media, as have video after video of Russian small business owners whose goods were in these warehouses and now face financial ruin.
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MAYNES: This is Olga Petrovska (ph), who says here on her Instagram account that her family clothing business is disappearing before her eyes after 10,000 items burned. She's among those selling what's left at steep discounts to avoid further losses, which speaks to a common feeling that these warehouses are impossible to defend, that more attacks are coming, which is what Ukraine says will happen.
FADEL: And, presumably, this is all being done to pressure the Kremlin. What do they say?
MAYNES: Well, the Kremlin says these are terrorist attacks. And they've given no indication it'll influence plans in Ukraine, where the Kremlin continues to insist it'll meet military objectives. Now, Ukraine has offered the Kremlin a cessation of long-range strikes if Russia does the same. And that's an idea that President Trump and President Zelenskyy may well discuss this week in Washington. The problem is that President Vladimir Putin of Russia has already rejected this idea outright, saying that whatever damage Ukraine can inflict, Russian bombs can do more.
FADEL: NPR's Charles Maynes in Moscow. Thank you, Charles.
MAYNES: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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