Ukrainian drone strikes on Wildberries depots near Moscow kill five

Steelman: both sides, in good faith

The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.

The case for

Advocates of the strikes argue that a nation under invasion has the right to disrupt its adversary's war-supporting infrastructure, and that if facilities operating under the Wildberries brand are genuinely being used to store, sort or distribute military-related goods, they become legitimate targets regardless of their civilian commercial origins. On this view, Ukraine has limited means to blunt Russia's logistics and mobilisation capacity compared with Russia's much larger arsenal, so long-range strikes on dual-use sites are a proportionate and necessary tool of self-defence rather than indiscriminate aggression. Supporters also note that Russia continues to strike Ukrainian cities nightly, killing children and the elderly, and argue Kyiv cannot be expected to unilaterally restrain attacks on militarily relevant targets while its own civilians are killed.

The case against

Critics argue that Wildberries is fundamentally a civilian retail company comparable to Amazon, and that striking its warehouses risks killing ordinary logistics workers and night-shift staff with only unverified claims linking specific sites to military supply chains. They contend that even if some goods moving through such warehouses eventually reach the military, this thin connection does not clearly meet the threshold for a legitimate military target under the laws of armed conflict, and that repeated strikes on civilian-branded commercial infrastructure blur an important line protecting non-combatants. This side also raises concern that such strikes deepen a cycle of long-range attacks on both sides' civilian-adjacent infrastructure, with mounting human cost that outweighs any marginal military disruption achieved.