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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Two years ago Russian dictator Vladimir Putin backed plans to turn Wildberries into a global e-commerce giant capable of competing with Western companies. Now Ukrainian drones are striking facilities of the Russian marketplace, attempting to deliver a new blow to the Russian economy, The Wall Street Journal writes.
The paper notes that Wildberries, based in Moscow, sits at the intersection of business and government in Russia. The Ukrainian attacks on it are an example of how closely the company’s fate is tied to the state. As part of the campaign against Wildberries, Ukraine has so far struck nearly two dozen of its warehouses. Nearly daily attacks have reached the Ural region of Russia—more than 1600 km from the front line.“A recent strike on one of its warehouses—one of the largest facilities of its kind in Russia—left smoking ruins roughly the size of New York’s Grand Central Station. Kyiv, which has also targeted oil and gas infrastructure deep inside Russia, said that the sale of military equipment through Wildberries makes the company a legitimate target,” the article says.According to Data Insight, a market-research firm specializing in online retail, online sellers using the Wildberries platform to sell everything from televisions to sneakers have lost goods worth up to 5 billion dollars since the attacks began.“Wildberries’ stake, which owes more than 10 billion dollars to Russian banks, remains uncertain. Plans for financial assistance are being discussed, which could trigger a domino effect across the banking sector,” the WSJ notes.Although the Wildberries site continues to operate uninterrupted, the Kremlin has already begun discussing what to do if strikes continue to inflict Wildberries-scale damage on the Russian economy.“For the Kremlin, Wildberries was meant to be a symbol of Russian ingenuity and resilience despite Western sanctions. But the company’s story illustrates the harsh realities of Russia’s business environment, where Putin’s drive to concentrate control over the levers of the economy around businessmen loyal to him dominates,” the paper writes.People familiar with the matter say Wildberries tripled its headcount last year, and at one point officials considered using the platform as a payment system to bypass Western restrictions on Russia’s use of the SWIFT messaging system that links financial institutions worldwide.Wildberries is a strategic asset because it is a large profitable business. Its growth coincided with plans for life in a system isolated from the West,” said Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
Wildberries began as a family business in 2004 and later became Russia’s largest online retailer. As it grew, businessmen connected to the Kremlin took an increasing interest in the company.In 2024 a dispute over Wildberries’ future between Tetyana Kim and her husband Vladislav Bakalchuk ended in a shootout near the company’s headquarters. Wildberries later announced a merger with one of the largest outdoor advertising companies backed by oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.Sources told the paper the deal was approved by Vladimir Putin, and he tasked former Economy Minister Maksym Oreshkin with overseeing the company’s development.In 2025 Wildberries also launched an online division selling bulletproof vests, helmets, and other military gear called “Everything for the SVO.” That division is no longer on the site.Since the attacks began, Ukrainian strikes have affected more than 1 million square meters of Wildberries warehouse space, Data Insight analyst Serhiy Semko said. He said the company initially in some cases offered to compensate sellers for losses but did not allow goods to be removed from warehouses.“If sales completely collapse, that will certainly be bad for everyone. The situation of warehouses being destroyed one after another shows that this strategy was generally wrong,” he said.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the government is in talks with Wildberries about state support after the strikes, but no decision has been made.Yet state banks Sberbank and VTB, which invested the most in Wildberries, are likely to find a way to rescue the company or reduce its debt load, sources told the paper. Smaller banks that lend to individual sellers may not have such resources.For the record, in 7 August Ukrainian UAVs reached the Urals and struck Wildberries’ logistics complex in Yekaterinburg. It is worth noting that the distance from the Ukrainian border to that facility is about 2000 km.
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