A blow to the Kremlin’s wallet: what new pain points of Russia did the Armed Forces of Ukraine find?

The current stage of the war can be characterized by the words of Donald Trump behind the scenes of his meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky during the NATO summit: “Maximum intensification of strikes on the Russian Federation in order to force the Russians to sit at the negotiating table.”

It is after this that the active phase of the operation of the Ukrainian Defense Forces, with the support of our strategic partners, against Russian logistics begins.

The main transshipment bases of the occupying country for the export of agricultural products, coal, mineral fertilizers and heavy metallurgy products were hit by Ukrainian UAVs. But the main thing is the products of agricultural producers, mineral fertilizers. The Kremlin was actually faced with the fact that they are being pushed out of world markets. First of all, food and mineral fertilizers.

It is indicative that Russian Railways (RZD) announced emergency restrictions on cargo shipments to the Azov and Taganrog port stations until at least August 4, 2026.

The Ministry of Transport of the occupying country completely banned civilian ships from anchoring near the port of Azov. Due to the critical situation, the Russian government even suggested that civilian shipowners install machine guns and mobile missile systems on dry cargo ships at their own expense to protect against Ukrainian drones.

Due to the high risk of ships being destroyed, the Russian authorities temporarily stopped accepting applications for passage through the Kerch Strait, which completely blocked the Don-Azov route. It is worth noting that the occupying country exported about 27-30% of its grain (over 14 million tons per season) through this route . Due to the blockade, Russian grain exports in July fell to the lowest level since 2017.

And combined with the strikes on refineries , this is a colossal pressure on its economy.

Regarding the series of strikes on Wildberries warehouses, Ukraine is primarily blocking the logistics of the Russian army’s material and technical support.

The fact is that Wildberries’ logistics complexes are integrated into the structure of the Russian army. The Wildberries platform has been actively used by the Russian army for mass purchases of ammunition, body armor, quadcopters, thermal imagers, and sanctioned electronic components for weapons assembly.

Before the massive attacks began, the marketplace had a huge specialized section “Everything for the SVO”, which the company hastily removed after the first attacks by Ukrainian UAVs.

This hit the Russian occupation army quite seriously. The occupiers acknowledge that the destruction of these warehouses, and up to 15% of the warehouses were hit, significantly affected the possibility of using FPV drones and fiber-optic drones.

But the main thing is that 1 million Russians are registered on these marketplaces. The network’s annual turnover exceeds 4.1 trillion rubles, which is more than 2% of the Russian GDP. Together with smaller competitors Wildberries and Ozon, they sell goods and services for an amount equivalent to 8.5% of Russian GDP, and also provide 4 million jobs.

Since Russia does not have military property insurance, the financial losses of small Russian entrepreneurs (sellers) from the destruction of goods have already exceeded 1-1.3 billion dollars . Total losses to the logistics network are estimated at more than 2 billion dollars. In just one week at the end of July, the total revenue of the Russian e-commerce segment fell by 10.6%. Due to the damage to key hubs, delivery times in the regions increased several times.

Immediately after the first strikes, Wildberries, Ozon, Yandex Market, and Megamarket urgently changed their offers for sellers. They added “UAV strikes, missile strikes, and military actions” to the list of force majeure. From now on, marketplaces will not compensate sellers for burned goods.

And this is already creating an element of social tension in Russia. Economists are already reporting a potential increase in the number of bankruptcies among Russian small and medium-sized businesses and a reduction in tax revenues to finance the active phase of the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian intelligence has reported that the Kremlin is increasingly using covert money issuance to finance the war against Ukraine. Due to the inability to raise sufficient funds on the market, the Russian authorities are forcing state banks to buy federal loan bonds, and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation provides the necessary liquidity for this.

In the first half of 2026, the Russian budget deficit reached almost $77 billion, with military spending remaining the main factor. Additional war spending could exceed the plan by another $51.3 billion to $ 64.1 billion, part of which the Kremlin wants to cover with new borrowing. At the same time, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation predicts that the annual deficit could grow to $105.1 billion.

Let me remind you that the Estonian Defense Forces Intelligence Center reported that Ukraine’s successful air attacks on Russia, the new targets of which were, in particular, Wildberries warehouses, are causing significant damage to the Russian economy.

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