What has been the impact of the Ukrainian attacks on Wildberries' warehouses?

Ukraine has spent about a month striking Wildberries warehouses across Russia with drones, causing major fires at about 20 facilities from Moscow and St. Petersburg to southern cities and the Ural Mountains.

PBS News reported that the strikes targeted Russia’s biggest online retailer rather than oil refineries, maritime hubs or arms plants. The campaign underlined Kyiv’s ability to strike deep inside Russia and posed a new challenge to President Vladimir Putin nearly 4½ years into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It also shook the business empire built by Tatyana Kim, Russia’s richest female entrepreneur, whose fortune is estimated at $8.1 billion.

The first named attacks hit Wildberries depots in Elektrostal, east of Moscow, and in the southwestern Tambov region on July 18. Some warehouses were as large as 300,000 square meters, about 3.2 million square feet, and unprotected; it took three days to extinguish the fire in Elektrostal, a key Moscow region hub. On the Sunday before publication, Ukraine set another hub on fire in Podolsk near Moscow, and Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said seven of Wildberries’ 10 largest logistics centers had been knocked out of operation.

Wildberries, launched by Kim from a Moscow apartment in 2004 and often called Russia’s Amazon, accounts for about half of online orders in Russia and is used by an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 sellers. Unlike Ozon and Yandex Market, it relied on about two dozen very large warehouses feeding about 100,000 storefront distribution points, making the damage central to its logistics network. Some estimates put destroyed warehouse space at up to 20% and losses as high as $6 billion.

Wildberries’ debts were estimated at about $15 billion at the end of 2025 after expansion funded by VTB and other banks. The lost goods mean tens of thousands of small businesses cannot continue operating, service loans or pay taxes, and Russia’s Central Bank has asked lenders to restructure loans to firms that lost merchandise. Kim pledged storage discounts, free transfers, discounted loans and other support, but reimbursements covered only a fraction of losses.

Ukrainian officials said Wildberries sells gear and technical components, including drones, to the military; Moscow denied the claim, though dual-use items such as drone components, flak jackets and thermal weapon sights remain available on the platform. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the strikes aimed to disrupt military supplies, create public discontent and stress banks including VTB and Sberbank. Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert at Mayak Intelligence, said the warehouses were soft targets because "they're not really built to be able to shrug off drone strikes," while Chris Weafer of Macro-Advisory said Kyiv sought "to undermine public confidence." Pro-Kremlin political expert Sergei Markov said the attacks strengthen calls to hit Europe, and former President Dmitry Medvedev said Ukraine was fighting "ordinary citizens."