Ukraine Just Found Russia’s New Weak Spot & Houthis Close Strait To Saudis

**Mike Baker** (0:11)
It's Tuesday, the 21st of July, welcome to The President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. And yes, look at that, still on the road. All right, let's get briefed. First up, Ukraine appears to have found a new pressure point inside of Russia. We'll examine why the country's largest logistics companies are suddenly finding themselves in Kyiv's crosshairs. Later in the show, Yemen's Houthis, remember them? Well, they're expanding the fight, announcing a naval blockade targeting Saudi Arabia and another critical maritime corridor. Plus, a US brokered plan enters a new phase as Israeli troops begin pulling out of parts of southern Lebanon.
In today's Back of the Brief, Hamas has a new leader. We'll tell you who Khalil al-Khaya is and what his rise could mean for the group's future.
But first, today's PDB spotlight.
Ukraine launched one of its largest long-range drone attacks of the war overnight, with Russian officials claiming more than 400 drones targeted Moscow and the surrounding region. According to Russian authorities, air defenses intercepted the vast majority of the drones before they reached the capital, even so, the barrage sparked fires at industrial sites and temporarily disrupted operations at several airports and also wounded at least 10 people in the Moscow region. President Zelensky later confirmed that Ukrainian forces had struck what he described as logistics facilities and an oil depot in the Moscow region. He also said Ukraine hit two shadow fleet tankers and four cargo ships in the Black Sea.
Now, there were a number of targets in the overnight blitz, but I wanted to focus on one in particular. A Wild Berries logistic center in Kolodino near the city of Podolsk, roughly 25 miles south of Moscow. We touched on Wild Berries during Monday morning show after Ukrainian drones struck two of the company's warehouses over the weekend. For those unfamiliar with the company, Wild Berries is essentially Russia's answer to Amazon. It's the country's largest online retailer, operating a vast network of fulfillment centers sorting facilities, trucking routes and distribution hubs that move millions of packages across Russia every day. At first glance, that might seem like an odd target perhaps. But Keefe says those facilities aren't just shipping consumer goods. President Zelensky has accused Wild Berries of helping move sanctioned electronic components, navigation equipment and other dual use items destined for Russia's drone industry and broader defense industrial base. Ukraine believes at least some of these warehouses have become part of Russia's military supply chain.
So, this is now the second consecutive day that Wild Berries has found itself in Ukraine's crosshairs. It appears to reflect a deliberate effort to target Russia's commercial logistics network. And strategically, that does make a great deal of sense. Ukraine's deep strike campaign initially concentrated on oil refineries, fuel depots, ammunition dumps, military headquarters and weapons factories. Those targets were intended to reduce Russia's ability to wage war by attacking the resources that it depended on. Now Kyiv appears to be adding another category to that target list, the logistics system that connects everything together. Every drone, every cruise missile, every artillery shell, every armored vehicle, every piece of military equipment depends on thousands of individual components moving through warehouses, rail terminals, trucking hubs, ports and distribution centers before they ever reach a factory or eventually the battlefield. Destroying a factory may eliminate one producer, but disrupting the network that supplies hundreds of factories, well, that can slow down an entire system.
Now there's one more reason these targets may appeal to Ukrainian planners. They don't just affect the military, they affect ordinary Russians. We spent a lot of time over the past few weeks talking about Ukraine's campaign against oil refineries and how it's creating major fuel shortages inside Russia. That makes the war more tangible, more felt by civilians far from the front. Strikes against major logistics hubs could have a similar effect. Companies like Wildberries are woven into everyday Russian commerce. When one of these massive fulfillment centers is knocked offline, businesses lose inventory, deliveries are delayed, supply chains are disrupted, and the economic consequences are felt well beyond the battlefield. In that sense, these attacks increase the domestic costs of continuing the war. It's also worth noting the language that President Zelensky used yesterday. He didn't highlight another strike against a Wildberries warehouse. Instead, he emphasized attacks on, quote, logistics facilities and an oil depot. That wording suggests Ukraine's leadership isn't thinking in terms of individual warehouses, it's thinking in terms of systems. If this campaign continues, and if we begin seeing strikes against other major Russian logistics companies or distribution hubs, it could mark one of the more significant evolutions in Ukraine's long-range strategy since the war began.