Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that Ukraine brought this on itself. He claimed Kyiv’s strikes on Russian economic targets triggered a response Moscow now considers far more damaging to Ukraine.
Putin made the remarks in an interview with Russian state media. He said Ukraine set out to hurt Russia’s economy but ended up opening a door it can’t close. “The Kyiv regime set out to damage our economy,” Putin said. “What did it do? It opened this Pandora’s box itself.”
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He warned that Russia would now target Ukraine’s “most sensitive economic sectors” in response. Putin also described the situation as a potential “catastrophic scenario” for Ukraine going forward.
The strikes behind the comments
This didn’t come out of nowhere. Ukraine has spent the summer ramping up long range drone attacks deep inside Russian territory. The targets have included oil refineries and warehouses tied to Russian e-commerce.
One recent strike hit an online retailer’s warehouse in Samara, wounding several people and disrupting logistics. Ukraine has framed this campaign as an effort to choke off infrastructure that keeps Russia’s war machine running.
Russia has hit back with its own strikes on Ukrainian economic targets. Grain export infrastructure has been a repeated target, striking at one of Ukraine’s most important revenue sources.
The food supply question
Putin also addressed concerns about global food shortages. He argued that even with Ukrainian grain exports under threat, there’s no reason to worry about a broader food crisis. Russia, he said, can simply replace what Ukraine would have supplied.
That claim comes years after Russia walked away from a Turkish brokered deal that had allowed Ukrainian grain shipments to move safely through the Black Sea. Since then, both countries have targeted each other’s grain infrastructure at different points in the war.