Pro-Kremlin state television has once again avoided showing Russian audiences the large-scale fires that erupted at Wildberries logistics centres following Ukrainian drone strikes.
According to the BBC, attacks on Wildberries facilities in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk on the 22nd of July received virtually no coverage on Russia’s main federal television channels.
State broadcasters Channel One (Pervy Kanal), Rossiya 1, and NTV made no mention of the strikes on the company’s warehouses. Instead, their news programmes focused on reporting Russian military strikes against targets in Ukraine.
The only federal broadcaster to briefly acknowledge the attacks was the rolling news channel Rossiya 24. However, its coverage quickly shifted to discussing possible compensation payments for victims of previous drone strikes on Wildberries logistics centres in Elektrostal and Kotovsk.
Viewers were also shown a report highlighting two logistics centre employees who, according to the broadcaster, had “helped rescue colleagues” during one of the drone attacks.
According to the BBC,
this is not the first time pro-Kremlin media have downplayed or ignored attacks on Wildberries facilities
despite growing public frustration in Russia over the destruction of warehouses, financial losses suffered by sellers, and delays in compensation payments.
Earlier reports also indicated that Russian state television withheld footage showing smoke-covered areas of the Moscow and Tambov regions after Ukrainian drones struck Wildberries warehouses allegedly used to supply Russia’s military-industrial complex, according to Dialog.UA.
Instead of broadcasting images or video of the large fires in Elektrostal and Kotovsk, state television relied primarily on screenshots of statements posted by Russian officials on social media.
Footage of the burning warehouses did not appear on Rossiya 1, Channel One, or NTV,
despite numerous videos circulating online.
Meanwhile, social media continues to fill with new photographs and videos documenting the scale of the destruction at the logistics centres.
Employees at the Wildberries warehouse in Elektrostal have alleged that management refused to allow workers to leave the burning building after the drone strike.
According to previous reports, seven people were killed in the attack on the Wildberries warehouse in Kotovsk in Russia’s Tambov region, while one person died following the strike on the Elektrostal warehouse in the Moscow region.
At least 86 people were injured in the two incidents, including 25 in Kotovsk and 61 in the Moscow region.
Read also: VIDEO | Ukrainian drones attack two more Wildberries warehouses