(roundup)
Russia carried out one of the largest ballistic strikes of the war overnight Wednesday on logistics and distribution facilities near Kyiv, with market leaders in their respective sectors - retail chain Epicentr, Nova Poshta and marketplace Rozetka - reporting the destruction of their facilities.
Epicentr’s logistics center in Kyiv was completely destroyed in the overnight attack, and one of Ukraine’s largest ceramic tile production facilities in Kalynivka was effectively lost, with one employee killed and three others injured, the company’s head of public relations, Yuliia Chudnovets, said on Facebook.
"As a result of a massive enemy attack, Nova Poshta’s sorting center in Kyiv was destroyed," Nova Poshta said on Telegram.
Three people were killed in the attack - two drivers working for a partner carrier and one employee of a contracting organization - while eight more were injured, the company said.
Rozetka co-owner Iryna Chechotkina wrote on Facebook, on the 21st anniversary of the company’s founding, that three ballistic missiles had destroyed the company’s distribution warehouse complex in Brovary, which had processed more than 100,000 orders a day.
"It was our biggest, most automated one. Our pride… It cannot be restored," she said.
Chechotkina noted that, unlike a previous strike several days earlier that killed one employee and injured seven others, this time there were no casualties.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after the strike that, as of Wednesday morning, 17 people were known to have been killed and 44 injured as a result of Russia’s massive strike on the capital and Kyiv region. He said 24 Iskander ballistic missiles and four Tsirkon/Onyx missiles were fired, none of which were shot down.
He said the enemy’s main targets were warehouse facilities of civilian businesses, with strikes also hitting infrastructure, a railway station, a brewing company, building materials warehouses and civilian logistics facilities.
"The war of attrition has entered its next phase. The enemy is attacking everything indiscriminately: retail warehouses, food warehouses, logistics hubs, businesses, building materials warehouses," presidential advisor on defense technology development Serhiy Bezkrestnov (Flash) wrote on Telegram after the overnight attack Wednesday.
A day earlier, the enemy struck Dnipro, after which Ukraine’s largest home goods manufacturer Biosfera, leading ice cream market player Lasunka and chocolate maker Millennium reported the destruction of warehouses on social media.
Biosfera Corporation CEO Andriy Zdesenko said a 20,000-square-meter warehouse complex in Dnipro had been destroyed.
Epicentr said after the strike that it had decided to halt production at the Epicentr Ceramic Corporation plant following a direct Russian missile strike and to move production to two of the company’s facilities abroad.
Nova Poshta said it would compensate customers the full declared value of damaged shipments and would contact each of them with reimbursement details.
"Over the years of the full-scale war, we have built a resilient operating system that allows us to ensure business continuity even in the most difficult conditions," the company added.
"The loss of the warehouse has affected the company’s logistics processes. It is impossible to fully prepare for something like this. At the same time, we had worked out various response scenarios in advance, including for the loss of an individual logistics facility," Zdesenko said, commenting on the strike.
Lasunka and Millennium warned that the Russian attack could lead to temporary disruptions in supplying their products to retail chains.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhiy Koretskyi said after the latest enemy shelling that the government would organize meetings with businesses to ensure the continuous operation of logistics and trading companies. He said the Ministry of Economy and Environment had received relevant instructions.
"Russia is expanding and spreading its terror to businesses that serve millions of people. Ukrainian enterprises, production facilities, and trade and logistics complexes have come under attack. There is no military purpose in these strikes whatsoever - this is terrorism!" Koretskyi wrote on Telegram Wednesday morning.
Oleksandr Sokolovskyi, founder of TK Group, one of the largest players in the textile market, said there is currently no response to the enemy’s build-up of ballistic missile production, "with which they are shooting at us with impunity, as if at a shooting range."
"Of course, we continue to hold on and do our work. But at this rate of destruction and losses, the economy could collapse, and there will be nowhere left to work and no one left to do it…" he wrote on Facebook, commenting on the latest strikes.
According to presidential advisor Bezkrestnov (Flash), Russia produces approximately 70 Iskander missiles a month at a cost of $2-3 million each, 50 S-400 missiles at $1-2 million each, and 4-7 Tsirkon missiles, while Patriot missiles are currently being produced at a rate of 50-60 a month and cost at least $4 million each.
Flash added that Russia’s stockpile of Iskander missiles is estimated at 200-300, while the global stockpile of PAC-3 missiles is around 4,000-5,000, meaning that, in his view, only the international community can help Ukraine now by providing missiles from its own stockpiles.
Oleksandr Fediienko, a member of the parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence (Servant of the People faction), suggested in a comment on the post that Russia has chosen Kyiv as a target, and that given such statistics, "50+ ballistic missiles" could strike the capital, so residents need to be honestly warned about this.
As previously reported, Russia fired 35 missiles at Ukraine overnight on Aug. 1, including 27 ballistic missiles. "Only one ballistic missile was shot down overnight simply because there are no missiles for the Patriot systems. And this shortage of interceptors against ballistic missiles only encourages Russia to continue such strikes against human life," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, commenting on the strike.
Earlier, when Russia launched a massive combined strike on Ukraine overnight on July 6 using 419 air attack weapons - 68 missiles and 351 drones of various types - the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported suppressing 363 targets, including 37 missiles and 326 drones of various types, but all 29 ballistic missiles (6 Tsirkons and 23 Iskander-Ms) hit their targets.
