Wildberries warehouse strikes are squeezing Russian businesses after Ukrainian drones hit several storage sites tied to Russia’s biggest online retailer over just a few days. The attacks have damaged goods, disrupted deliveries and left many small sellers facing losses they may not recover.
Kyiv says its drone campaign is now aimed at logistics hubs that help Russians obtain military equipment and keep supplies moving to the Russian army. The latest strikes, however, have also hit hundreds of merchants who rely on Wildberries and similar platforms to make a living. For many of them, the war is no longer something far from daily life.
Ukraine’s first strike on Wildberries at the weekend hit warehouses in Elektrostal, east of Moscow, and Kotovsk in the Tambov region. Seven night-shift workers were killed in Kotovsk, one person died at Elektrostal, and dozens more were injured, according to the report. Goods worth an estimated £750m, or $1bn, were destroyed. Further attacks overnight into Wednesday hit Wildberries logistics hubs in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk, and company owner Tatiana Kim said more casualties had been reported.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine was, in his words, bringing the war back into Russia. Moscow has long denied that online platforms are being used for military supply chains, but military-related items and goods with civilian and drone-production uses are available for sale. There is no independent confirmation that the warehouses struck were storing such supplies. Even so, pro-war bloggers say volunteers commonly use these marketplaces to buy equipment for the front.
