Ukraine smashes Russian port and Putin's family factory blitzed as Wildberries blood feud revealed

Ukraine has hammered Russia's port of last resort and hits the country's biggest petrochemicals plant, part owned by Vladimir Putin's family.And today, I'll report on a deadly Wild Berries blood feud that has pitted two of Putin's top henchmen against each other as yet another warehouse goes up in flames.There is a glimmer of good news on Ukraine's quest for more Patriot missiles and a direct threat from President Putin to seize European cargo vessels.My name is Jerome Starkey.I'm the defence editor at The Sun newspaper, and this is Frontline, your weekly roundup of the most important news from the war in Ukraine.We're starting with the latest strike on a Wild Berries warehouse, this time in Salavat, some 1 ,200 kilometres inside Russian territory.

A logistics hub once again going up in flames.Russian officials reporting that fires have broken out in two industrial areas and that helicopters are on the scene assisting firefighters trying to put out out those blazes.We know that wild berries hubs, logistics plants, warehouses burn very, very well.Officials around Salavat saying 21 drones were downed, Ukrainian drones were downed.We don't know how many got through.This strike brings to 24, at least 24, the number of these wild berries warehouses that have been hit.

And that includes this week another strike on the night of the 10th to the 11th of August.on a warehouse in Voronezh.Now, to really understand where Wildberry sits in Russian society, and perhaps more importantly, in Vladimir Putin's orbit, I thought we'd do a little bit of a dive into an extraordinary blood feud that has pitted the family that own it and theirbackers against each other.We've talked before about how this is a vast nine billion dollar company, a linchpin in many ways of the Russian economy that spans online shopping, home deliveries and banking.But there's a back story I think you'd like to know.

In September 2024, two people were killed, 30 people were arrested, and the founder of Wild Berries, estranged husband, was charged with murder after he tried to storm the company's headquarters in Moscow.He tried to get in.He was blocked.Two security guards were shot dead.This was an attempt by the founder, Tatiana Kim's estranged husband, Vladislav, Bakulcuk to get into the building now to understand why this happened.We have to go back a few months This is not really a fight between husband and wife.

In fact, this is a proxy war, if you like, between the Chechen warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov.And you remember, he was responsible for sending his soldiers to invade Ukraine in the first phase of that full scale invasion.And they were linked to some of the most horrific and wanton war crimes in areas like Irpin and Bucha, northwest of the capital, Kyiv.It's a dispute between Kadyrov and the Dagestan senator, Suleiman Kerimov.who was estimated to be worth about $21 billion before the war in Ukraine.

But his wealth has, according to some reports, plummeted at least in half.He's still a significant billionaire.Both of these men, in different ways, staunch Putin enforcers.

They owe a lot of their wealth and influence to his ongoing patronage.They're powerful in their own right, but being wealthy and powerful in Russia relies to some extent on the president's patronage.

He can take it away.He has taken it away.from other oligarchs in the past.So just before that shootout in September 2024, two things happened in the summer.So bear in mind, 2024, this is two years into the full scale war in Ukraine.In June, Wild Berries announced it was going to merge with an advertising company called Russ Group.

Now, Russ Group's beneficial owner, although not listed as the official owner, is Suleyman Karimov.So this was his company.

It was announced as a sort of like for like merger as two equal partners coming together.And that sparked some confusion in Russia because Wild Berries was 20 times bigger.A month later, Tatyana Kim, the Chechen -born founder of the company, announced that she was divorcing her husband, Vladislav Bakalchuk, who she met before she founded the company.And simultaneously, Bakalchuk announced that he had enlisted the support of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen warlord, to try and block that merger between the Rus group and Wild Berries.Kadyrov, described it as a hostile takeover.

And in a video he published, he promised to bring Tatiana back into the family.Now, I think if you know who Kadyrov is, when somebody like him says he's going to bring somebody back into the family and he also said he was going to protect a legitimate business, that is not quite as kind as it sounds.That is a pretty sinister threat aimed squarely at Tatiana Kim.and her backer, Suleiman Karimov.

Fast forward a few weeks.September 2024.Battleship tries to storm the building.Two people are killed.The first time we hear from Kadyrov after that assault is about 10 days later, when he, using his own words,

declares a blood feud with Suleyman Karimov and any two other MPs from the caucus region.So with a senator Karimov and two MPs in the Russian lower house.

Vladimir Putin had backed this merger and this gives us an insight into how business works in Russia.

Big businesses, big whilst seemingly independent commercial entities are never independent commercial entities.Just like the oligarchs, the businesses rely on that tacit approval of the president as well.

Some exiled Russian news analysts suggested that actually what was happening was that this was a deliberate redistribution of wealth and assets to reward people who had backed Putin and particularly backed his full scale war in Ukraine.

Now, Karimov had done that at the beginning.It's not clear whether he'd fallen out of favour, but certainly it appears that Karimov was in favour and he was being rewarded, effectively being gifted.

It would seem this huge Russian business or gifted a significant interest in it.In December last year, December 2025, Putin's involvement in this company continues.

Wildberries steps out of its lane of being Russia's answer to Amazon, an online shopping portal where, as we've discussed before, you can buy everything, including drone parts, engines, bomb droppers, all the things that we know Russian soldiers are using as part of their war in Ukraine.

And it steps into the banking, personal finance space, offering its customers loans and discounts.That upsets Russia's big banks.These are powerful players.And Putin backs Wildberries against the banks.

Now, the coda to this story is that in February this year, We learn that apparently Karinov and Karimov buried the hatchet.They published a picture of the two men shaking hands.after a meeting brokered by President Putin in the Kremlin.And that reconciliation comes just in time for Ukraine to launch its devastating campaign of strikes against these warehouses this year, bringing that company to its knees, threatening not just wild berries, but of course, all of those sort of mid -level businesses, medium -sized businesses, small businesses, entrepreneurs who sell their products through the Wild Berries portal.And that, as we've discussed, is bringing the war home in many ways to ordinary Russians.

But because of these links to Kadyrov, to Karimov, to President Putin, this is bringing the war home to Putin as well.

And that, I think, is really important.That's why we've gone into trying to explain this.

Now, I'm going to make some more direct links to how President Putin is being hurt by the by Ukraine's campaign in a moment.But while we're talking about what happened in Salavat, that was the strikes overnight on the latest Wild Berries warehouse.We should also point out that Ukraine has hit the Gazprom Neftekhim oil refinery.That's one of the big ones.It refines about 2 .7 percent of Russia's total capacity.And interestingly, that total capacity, that total refining capacity or output is down about 30 percent year on year for July.

Those are figures for July showing that Russia's refining capacity 30 percent down.Indeed, we know Russia has banned the export of petroleum products.It's importing in recent weeks from India and Belarus.That is proof that Ukraine's campaign is working.It's been targeting Russia's oil refining infrastructure in order to try and choke the Kremlin coffers, to choke off the supply of income that Moscow needs to prosecute this war.Let's get back to how this war is affecting President Putin personally.

One of the most dramaticstrikes this week was a long -range drone attack on a petrochemical plant in Toblosk in Tyumen region.That is about 2 ,000, in fact, more than 2 ,200 kilometres inside Russian territory.This is one of the record -length strikes that Ukraine has carried out, and this happened on Monday afternoon.This plant makes polymers, which are the raw materials for making plastics.And those plastics can be used in all sorts of industrial processes and manufacturing.

The factory itself was opened in 2013 by President Putin, and he hailed it as an investment that would make Russia less dependent on foreign imports.When Ukraine hit it this week, they said it was making raw ingredients for Russia's arms industry.So spectacular and impressive in many ways that Ukraine had managed to hit a plant so deep inside Russian territory.But what's interesting is that among this company's owners, around a five percent stake was held by Kirill Shamilov.Now, Kirill Shamilov is used to be Vladimir Putin's son -in -law.He has divorced since divorced Putin's daughter.

But remarkably, Within months of becoming part of the Putin family, he became an instant billionaire.

And whilst the ways that Vladimir Putin squirrels away his wealth and influence remain opaque, there's little doubt that parking it in the accounts of his relatives and his most trusted cronies is one of the ways that he maintains his grip and his formidable influence and spectacular but really perhaps unmeasured wealth.

The other major attack this week is that Ukraine has launched a significant drone attack.missile strike on Novorossiysk, the Russian port at the eastern edge of the Black Sea.They hit the Russian naval base and they hit a grain terminal, grain infrastructure for loading grain onto ships.Significantly, though, Ukraine did not hit the oil and gas, liquid natural gas infrastructure in that port to export Russia's hydrocarbons.Now, I called this the port of last resort, and that's for good reason, because Novorossiysk, where Russia's Black Sea fleet retreated to earlier in this conflict, when it simply became too dangerous for those vessels to remain in Sebastopol, which was the headquarters of the Black Sea fleet in occupied Crimea.The advent of Ukraine's long -range weapons, not just the range, but in volume and complexity, has allowed them to hit this port.

Now, they have hit it before.But what was interesting, President Zelensky, when he announced this strike, said that they used four different types of missiles, nine different types of unmanned aerial vehicles, so air drones, and two types of uncrewed surface vehicles, sea drones.

all of which were Ukrainian made.So that's 15 different types of sovereign Ukrainian weapons combining in a complex, successful attack.And he said, President Zelensky said they hit two Russian frigates, a landing ship and a corvette.And of course, that grain infrastructure, which Zelensky said was part of financing Russia's war.So effectively trying to reduce Russia's exports to hit the Kremlin coffers.Significantly, on this time, they didn't hit the oil and gas infrastructure.

And that appears to be because of a report in the Financial Times that U .

S.Vice President J .D.Vance called President Zelensky and specifically asked him not to disrupt global oil supplies.And that's because of the chaos that America has unleashed on global oil supplies.

of its attacks on Iran, which has led to Tehran closing the Strait of Hormuz and effectively significantly limiting the movement of any ships through that region.

In the close battle, dramatic footage this week of troops from Azov hitting a Russian convoy.

Two things kind of surprising about this is that the scale of the Russian convoy, we haven't really seen Russian vehicles moving in such large packets because large packets, large convoys become attractive targets for both sides.And sort of parallel with that, extraordinary footage of a Russian anti -aircraft gunner firing both barrels of a heavy gun off the back of what appears to be a pickup at drones to try and defend his vehicle from approaching drones, but in busy traffic.So just a sign, really, of the sort of desperation and another indication, I think, of how that war, the conflict in Ukraine's mid -range strikes on logistics lines, have brought the conflict home to ordinary people trying to use those roads as well.It would be terrifying, I think, to be driving either close behind that vehicle or miles behind those vehicles, because those bullets will eventually have to fall.Also worth noting this week, Romania has said it destroyed two Gerbera drones in its exclusive economic zone, which it discovered in the sea off the Romanian coast.Officials in Ukraine expressing serious concerns about what is going to happen this winter.

And I think there is a fear that the pendulum of momentum could swing against Ukraine.It's most certainly been in Ukraine's favour for the six or eight months or so of this year, particularly with the successful long range strikes.But as the winter looms, as Russia maintains its barrage of ballistic missiles against Kiev's paucity, shortage of the most sophisticated air defence systems, Patriot missiles, there's a risk it could swing the other way.way.And there has been, we have seen a sort of sustained campaign of strikes, Russian strikes, against Ukraine's port infrastructure.Hit similarly, just as Ukraine hit grain infrastructure in Novorossiysk, Russia has been doing the same in Odessa and around Odessa on the Black Sea coast, and that could really hurt the Ukrainian economy.

In terms of what has been coming the other way, 899 missiles and drones fired at Ukraine over the last seven days.That's according to Ukraine's air force.

That is lower than the weekly average.And we always caveat that with a concern that whenever the number drops, that normally means there's a big strike coming.And the head of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces has warned that what Russia is aiming to try and fire 200 ballistic missiles at Ukraine in a single night.

Ukraine has also stopped reporting the ratio of missiles fired versus missiles shot down.

Now, officially, that's because it was helping Russia.Effectively, they were doing battle assessments for the Russians, providing that intelligence for free and easily for them.I think it's clearly also because the shoot -down rate has become so low.Indeed, we talked about it last week, how there were nights when no ballistic missiles were shot down.And that is deeply demoralising for Ukraine.One other strike to mention, there was a train hit overnight, a passenger train, Ukraine said, hit in Odessa overnight, a driver and his assistant killed.

That may have been part, I'm speculating, but that may have been part of those strikes I mentioned earlier, Russia trying to hit Ukraine's port and logistics infrastructure.On the political front, Vladimir Putin has expressly threatened retaliation against European cargo vessels if Europe continuesboard, seize, and potentially sell the cargo of Russian Shadow Fleet vessels.Putin called that piracy and robbery.It follows new European legislation or a mechanism that would let countries sell the oil of seized Shadow Fleet vessels.Now, a number of countries, including the UK, not part of the EU, but including the UK, France, have seized these shadow fleet vessels.

Shadow fleet vessels, just to remind you, often flagged with flags of convenience.Third country flags are not sailing under Russian flags, but which Putin uses to evade sanctions.So they load on Russian oil.They often they might then move that oil from ship to ship in international waters and then sail it into other ports, pretending it is oil from somewhere else to evade those sanctions.Putin specifically mentioned vessels sailing through Russian economic waters on the Pacific coast.And today he's on the disputed Kirill Islands.

These are islands that Japan has a longstanding historical claim to just Interesting coincidence that he's talking about that.He's out there in that region.So this really may be a threat broader than just to European vessels.

Finally, I mentioned there is a glimmer of good news on Ukraine's quest for Patriot missiles, and that is that Poland's deputy defence minister has said that Warsaw is considering transferring another tranche of Patriots to Ukraine.Ukraine desperately needs these missiles.They are the most sophisticated, advanced ballistic air defence weapons that Kiev has had access to.And President Zelensky has underlined that need today.He said that if America transferred just 10 per cent of its stocks, Ukraine would be able to shoot down all Russian ballistic missiles.

But we heard from Trump over a week ago saying we need these missiles too.And that's true.The reason America needs them more now than ever is because they've burned through so many, defending their interests and protecting their allies in the Gulf in response to the Israeli -US attack on Iran and Iran's retaliation against nations across the Gulf.

Now, as ever, if you've got any questions, please do ask them in the comments below.We continue to love reading them.I say always they make us laugh.They really make me think and also love the comments on my attire.Thank you for those of you who noticed I was wearing a slightly smarter shirt last time.Question number one.

Does Ukraine not target the interests of Russian oligarchs, and would targeting those interests not increase the pressure on Putin?

It's a really timely question, and it's part of the reason we've gone into that dive on wild berries.Ukraine does target oligarchs' interests, and that is likely to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin.It certainly brings the impact of the war closer to his pocket.How many Ukrainian soldiers are dying?It's a good question.It's a fair question.

And the short answer is we don't know.Ukraine publishes almost daily statistics for the number of Russian forces it believes it has killed.And that number of killed and injured over the course of the whole war is approaching 1 .5 million.Now, we should always caveat these figures that there's a temptation for every side to exaggerate the death toll of its enemies, although Western intelligence services have sort of taken to say that they do believe those Ukrainian figures are now broadly right.Britain's defence intelligence used to publish separate estimates, but it now repeats Ukrainian estimates.The second part of that question is, is Ukraine facing a recruitment crisis?

And the answer is absolutely yes, both sides.are facing a recruitment crisis.Both sides have resorted to some pretty unsavoury tactics.And part of that problem is that people simply do not want, for understandable reasons, to put themselves on the front lines in these horrific kill zones where anything that moves can get hit by drones.It's worth saying, though, also in answer to this question, is that the death tolls My understanding is that the Ukrainian death toll has reduced significantly from its peak because there's less movement on the front lines.Russia is gaining less territory, so Ukraine's forces are moving less, are exposed less.

And effectively, if they can hunker down in their positions, they are safer.The most dangerous time for most soldiers is moving to and from the front.

Question number three, do NATO members counter Russian cyber attacks with their own offensive cyber attacks?

The short answer, nothing as far as I know has been declared in that space.But the more nuanced answer is that my understanding, which is limited of cyber warfare, is that in order to have the ability to attack, you need to do two things.You need to be constantly probing to understand cyber defences.And in many places, you might need to pre -position code inside hardware or inside other software in order to be able to activate it.in a time of need or conflict.It would be a surprise, just as with espionage, that Russia spies on NATO countries and NATO countries spy on Russia.

It would be a surprise if those nations were not both at the very least using cyber warfare techniques to probe each other's defences.

And final question, why does the UK not have any ballistic protection?Do we have something else?

Well, we do have very limited ballistic protection in the UK.That is what is kept on the Type 40 five air defense destroyers.If you look at those ships, if you look atpictures of those ships, that's why they have those enormous Samson radars towering over the waterline.That's to give them sort of vast reach to be able to detect huge numbers of flying objects simultaneously and then programme the missiles on the foredeck to shoot them down.But we only have six of those ships.

Only a handful of them are active at any one time or in sort of ready to deploy at any one time.And that is why you see them deploying to London, for example, when we have big events in the capital.Certainly, I think, for the royal wedding or perhaps the royal funeral.But you see them coming and docking in London when there are big events, when there are lots of world leaders coming here.And whilst it's not overtly declared, that is why it's happening.But the UK's ballistic air defence is very limited.

There isn't really anything else.There used to be a sense that we could rely on NATO allies because missiles would be coming from the east.But that has changed now because of the range of these missiles.It's very possible, in fact, likely in the event of a full -scale conflict, that they would be coming from the north, over the North Pole or thereabouts, and that Britain would effectively be on NATO's frontline.Thank you very much for watching.Thank you all of you for your comments.

Thank you for your support for Frontline.Please do remember, like and subscribe.And if you'd like to know more about what I'm doing on defence, you can follow me on Twitter.You can follow me on Instagram.I was in Kiev just over a week ago with the new British Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting.Some pictures from that trip up there.

That's at Jerome Starkey on Twitter and Instagram.And I will see you next time.