UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has urged allies to “do everything we can” and “dig into our own stocks of air defence” to protect Ukraine against Russian attacks at his first meeting co-chairing the so-called coalition of the willing group.
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin is now hoping he can win through a campaign of terror using ballistic missiles against Ukrainian civilians … This can never be the route to victory, and we need to be clear in sending that message,” Burnham said at the start of the meeting.
“It means doing everything we can all do, and working with our allies as well, beyond this coalition, to dig into our own stocks of air defence … to protect Ukraine from the missiles that are falling now.”
He also said there was a need for more sanctions on Russian oil and LNG exports to ramp up the pressure on the Kremlin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has repeatedly pleaded for more US-made Patriot interceptor missiles in recent months as Ukrainian stocks have diminished.
It comes as Ukraine targeted four logistics hubs owned by Russia’s second-largest online retailer Ozon, widening a campaign of drone strikes on Russian e-commerce companies intended to inflict more damage on the war-battered economy.
Ozon’s shares tumbled on Monday after it reported the strikes in southern Russia, which brought to six the number of its facilities targeted in the last three days.
Ukraine had until last week focused on Ozon’s rival, Wildberries, in attacks on the e-commerce sector – one of the fastest-growing parts of the Russian economy, which is otherwise close to stagnation after four and a half years of war in Ukraine.
Ozon said in a statement that a logistics hub in Makhachkala in Dagestan was on fire and had halted operations after a drone attack, adding: “According to preliminary information, several people were injured.”
A fire also broke out at an Ozon logistics hub in the town of Enem on the outskirts of the city of Krasnodar, and workers were helped out from warehouses in Adygeysk, in the Adygeya region, and in Nevinnomyssk in the Stavropol region although neither facility was damaged, it said.
Work at an Ozon logistics centre in the Samara region was halted on Saturday after it was hit in a drone strike, and the company said work had been halted at its logistics centre in the Orenburg region, from which more than 300 people had to flee.
Shares in Ozon fell by almost 30 per cent on the Moscow Exchange on Monday and shares in its major shareholder, private equity firm AFK Sistema, fell more than 13 per cent.
Ukraine has been attacking Wildberries warehouses on the grounds that they are part of infrastructure underpinning Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Financial analysts said that unlike privately owned Wildberries, which has the backing of its partner, state-owned bank VTB, Ozon’s main shareholder AFK Sistema has a large debt and is unlikely to provide substantial support for the retailer.
In remarks before the latest attacks on Ozon, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised state help in the restoration of warehouses “at a new technological level” and asked the government to design a special program to help the sector.
The Russian finance ministry said on Monday it had prepared measures to support Wildberries and small businesses operating on its platform whose goods have been damaged in attacks.
The measures included tax breaks for up to one year.
Russia’s central bank has also advised creditors to support businesses affected by attacks on logistics centres and warehouses.
“We keep on working,” said Wildberries owner Tatyana Kim, Russia’s richest businesswoman, welcoming the tax breaks.
with PA
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