The war left the trench long ago and entered the warehouse. Ukraine has destroyed two more large Wildberries warehouses - the biggest Russian online store, the Russian version of Amazon - in attacks on facilities near Krasnodar and in Stavropol. The estimated damage ranges between 150 and 230 billion rubles, or around two billion dollars. That is not a random target, it is a message.

Wildberries, founded in 2004, holds over 40 percent of the Russian retail market and generates annual revenue of over 30 billion dollars. But the platform does not only sell clothes and cosmetics - it also sells drones and military equipment, and serves as a channel for evading sanctions worth hundreds of millions a year. In other words, Ukrainian drones are not hitting ordinary internet shopping, but part of the machinery that feeds the Russian war economy.

The most cynical thing is the reaction of the company itself. Wildberries announced it would not compensate its sellers for the damage. On 7 July, just days before the attacks, it changed the terms of business - it deleted the „force majeure” clauses and explicitly excluded any compensation related to war. Someone in management clearly knew what was coming, and protected themselves in advance - on the backs of the small traders.

This is the face of modern warfare: it is not only the bridge that gets destroyed, it is the supply chain. Since 2022, Russia has systematically targeted Ukrainian hospitals, power plants and logistics centres. Now Ukraine is hitting back with the same logic - if infrastructure is a weapon, then the warehouse is a front too.

For the Balkans, which remember well what it looks like when the economy turns into a battlefield, this picture is not foreign. When war hits warehouses, prices, jobs and supply, it is ordinary people far from the front who suffer - the trader who will not get their goods back, the buyer who will not receive the parcel. War always costs the most for those who wanted it least.

And the question hanging in the air is simple: when an „ordinary” online store becomes a legitimate military target, where is the line drawn between civilian and military any more? The answer, we fear, is written by the missiles - not by the lawyers.