Ukraine takes aim at Russia’s economy and morale by attacking online retailer
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- Ukraine has carried out a month-long drone campaign hitting roughly 20 Wildberries warehouse facilities since the first strikes July 18 in Elektrostal and Tambov, stretching from Moscow and St. Petersburg eastward to Yekaterinburg, more than 2,000 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
- Up to 20% of Wildberries' total warehouse space has been destroyed, with losses estimated as high as $6 billion; the company's debts stood at roughly $15 billion at the end of 2025, including massive loans from VTB and Sberbank.
- Wildberries warehouses are 'not especially secured' and 'not really built to be able to shrug off drone strikes,' according to Russia expert Mark Galeotti of Mayak Intelligence, with some depots as large as 300,000 square meters.
- The attacks have hit an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 small sellers who use the platform to store and ship merchandise; Russia's Central Bank has now asked lenders to restructure loans to affected small and medium businesses.
- Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said the strikes are designed to disrupt dual-use military components sold on Wildberries — a claim Moscow denies — while also pressuring Russian banks and breeding public discontent.
- Pro-Kremlin figures including former president Dmitry Medvedev and political expert Sergei Markov argued the strikes risk backfiring by fueling Russian hawks who want escalation, with Markov saying it 'strengthens the view that it's necessary to hit Europe.'
- Founder Tatyana Kim, 50, launched Wildberries in 2004 from her Moscow apartment and built it into Russia's dominant online retailer, which now handles roughly half of all e-commerce orders across the country's 11 time zones.
Why it matters: By burning civilian e-commerce warehouses rather than military infrastructure, Ukraine turns daily consumer life into a casualty of war: Wildberries' $15 billion debt load and dependence on loans from state-linked VTB and Sberbank mean sustained destruction could stress Russian banks, while the 500,000–800,000 sellers and millions of pickup-point customers now experience the conflict's reach in ways oil-refinery strikes never achieved.
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