Ukraine drone strikes hit Wildberries, disrupting deliveries across Russia

Moscow,UPDATED: Aug 17, 2026 11:32 IST

Ukrainian drone attacks on Wildberries, Russia's biggest online retailer, have hit about 20 of the company's warehouses over the past month, setting off large fires and disrupting deliveries across the country. The strikes, which began on a July weekend, have stretched from Moscow and St Petersburg to cities in the south and as far east as Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains.

Unlike earlier Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries, ports or arms plants, these attacks have focused on the depots that support everyday online shopping in Russia. The damage has shaken the business empire of Wildberries founder Tatyana Kim, affected hundreds of thousands of sellers, and created fresh pressure on Russia's economy and banking system nearly four-and-a-half years into President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Kim, 50, was born in Grozny in Chechnya to an ethnic Korean family of an engineer and a teacher. She started Wildberries in 2004 from her Moscow flat soon after giving birth to her first child, while working as an English teacher. "The idea was born from my own needs, and turned out to be needed by hundreds of thousands," said Kim, now a mother of seven. "If a product or service makes your own life easier, you're on the right track."

Wildberries began by selling clothes before expanding into appliances, household goods, cosmetics, books and other products. The company, known for its purple logo, now accounts for about half of all online orders in Russia. Businesses of all sizes use it to store, ship and deliver goods across Russia's 11 time zones. An estimated 500,000 to 800,000 sellers use the platform, often described as Russia's Amazon. After Western brands left following the war in Ukraine, online retailers filled the gap with goods from China, Turkiye, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere. Wildberries also acquired a bank, expanded into tourism and considered buying an airline.

In 2024, Kim divorced her husband, Vladislav Bakalchuk, setting off a battle for control of the company. Bakalchuk sought backing from Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his paramilitary forces, but lost the fight. The confrontation peaked in a shootout at a business centre near the Kremlin in which two people were killed and several others were wounded.

Wildberries built its logistics network around about two dozen very large warehouses, which hold stock before it is sent to around 100,000 pickup and distribution points across Russia. Rival platforms Ozon and Yandex Market use smaller depots spread across a wider network. Since July 18, when the first attacks hit Elektrostal east of Moscow and the Tambov region in the south-west, Wildberries depots have caught fire one after another, with videos of the blazes spreading widely on social media. Some of the warehouses are as large as 300,000 square metres. The Elektrostal site, the main hub for the Moscow region, burned for three days.

"These are not military and high-value political targets, therefore they're not especially secured, they're not really built to be able to shrug off drone strikes," said Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert who heads Mayak Intelligence consultancy. Estimates suggest up to 20 per cent of Wildberries' total warehouse space may have been destroyed, with losses put as high as USD 6 billion. Kim said the company's sites had been "reinforced and strengthened" defensively, but the attacks continued, with some sites suffering minor damage before being targeted again. Wildberries said it was reorganising supply chains and creating "partner hubs" for storage, though that process is expected to be long and difficult because of its dependence on large depots.

Ukrainian officials have said Wildberries sells equipment and technical components, including drones, to the military. Moscow denied that, but dual-use items such as drone parts, flak jackets and thermal weapon sights remain available on the platform. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the strikes were meant to disrupt military supplies, stir public discontent and create a domino effect in the Russian economy by increasing pressure on major banks such as VTB and Sberbank, which extended large loans to Wildberries. The company's debts were estimated at about USD 15 billion at the end of 2025.

The attacks have added to the strain on Russia's small and medium businesses, which were already dealing with tax rises, regulatory obstacles and a fuel crisis caused by strikes on oil refineries. "I wouldn't say it's a nail in the coffin because we're not there yet, but it's certainly another enormous difficulty on top of what has already been a very difficult situation for small enterprises," said Chris Weafer, chief executive of Macro-Advisory Ltd Consultancy. Wildberries had recently changed its seller policy, freeing itself from liability for stock damaged by a "force majeure" event that includes drone strikes. Kim pledged support for sellers through storage discounts, free transfer of goods to other sites, discounted loans and other steps. The company also paid some compensation, but it covered only a small part of the losses.

Russia's Central Bank has asked lenders to restructure loans for small and medium businesses that lost stock in the fires. Many operators of Wildberries pickup points are also facing falling revenue as deliveries drop, and some have said on social media that they risk going out of business. Large quantities of lost stock mean tens of thousands of small businesses may be unable to keep operating, repay loans or pay taxes, and many are asking for government help.

Galeotti said the strikes showed Kyiv's effort to bring the war home to Russia. "It's not just about seeing great clouds of black smoke over your cities because of some oil refinery on the outskirts being hit," he said. "You might be a small business whose inventory has just gone up in smoke in one of the Wildberries' warehouses. Or else you just simply might be an ordinary consumer who just suddenly is no longer going to get the goods that you plan to buy." Some analysts said the attacks could deepen anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western sentiment instead of provoking discontent. Pro-Kremlin political expert Sergei Markov said, "It strengthens the view that it's necessary to hit Europe. And better sooner than later." Former President Dmitry Medvedev said, "Our enemy is fighting not the Russian leadership or the army, but ordinary citizens." In sum, the attacks on Wildberries have hit a major part of Russia's retail network, affected businesses and consumers, and opened a new front in the wider impact of the war inside Russia.

With PTI Inputs

- Ends