Wildberries Seeks Kazakhstan Warehouses After Drone Strikes
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- Wildberries is hunting ~100,000 sqm of warehouse space in Kazakhstan, with one source telling Kommersant the company is prepared to lease all available logistics facilities on the local market to move part of its operations beyond Ukrainian strike range.
- Ukraine struck a Wildberries logistics hub in Ryazan on July 29 — the latest in a mid-July campaign that also hit facilities in Moscow, Tambov, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk, Krasnodar, and Stavropol regions.
- Kazakhstan's tight warehouse market thwarts the plan: only ~130,000 sqm sat vacant nationwide as of late June 2026, spread across multiple cities, and no single complex offers the 100,000 sqm footprint Wildberries wants, per IBC Global managing partner Stanislav Akhmedzyanov.
- Wildberries is also struggling to expand inside Russia — some warehouse owners are refusing to sign new leases over drone-attack fears, and the company has said standard insurance policies do not cover drone strike damage.
- Wildberries already has long-term Kazakhstan projects in motion: a >100,000 sqm center in Almaty and a >160,000 sqm facility in Astana.
- President Zelenskyy framed the strikes as a response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, saying the targeted hubs supplied sanctioned components used in drone and navigation equipment production.
Why it matters: Wildberries is boxed in: the drone strikes forcing it abroad have made Russian landlords refuse to lease to it, while Kazakhstan's tight market — just 130,000 sqm vacant nationwide, scattered across multiple cities — cannot absorb a single 100,000 sqm footprint at ~$130/sq meter annually. The scramble demonstrates how Ukrainian long-range strikes are pushing Russia's civilian logistics infrastructure to physically relocate beyond Moscow's reach.
