Ukraine's drone strikes burn Russia's top online retailer

KUALA LUMPUR, 18 AUGUST 2026 —

Smoke rose over St. Petersburg on Friday after a Ukrainian drone struck a Wildberries warehouse, marking the latest attack in a month-long campaign that has gutted nearly one-fifth of Russia’s biggest online retailer’s logistics network.

Tatyana Kim, Wildberries’ founder and chief executive, told the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok last September that her company had reinforced sites against drone attacks, yet the strikes have continued. Kim, 50, launched the e-commerce platform in 2004 from a Moscow apartment after the birth of her first child. It has become Russia’s dominant marketplace, processing about half of all online orders and supporting an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 sellers.

The sustained assault on civilian infrastructure is a shift from earlier Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries, military bases and transport hubs. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the campaign aims to disrupt military logistics by targeting dual-use goods—including drones, component parts and ballistic protection gear—that sellers list on Wildberries. Russia’s government has denied such items are available on the platform.

Wildberries’ debts reached the equivalent of about $15 billion at the end of 2025, according to industry estimates. The company has drawn heavily on loans from state-controlled banks such as VTB to fund expansion, including the acquisition of a retail bank, tourism ventures and even talks to buy an airline.

With seven major logistics hubs now offline, Wildberries is trying to shift inventory into smaller “partner hubs,” a logistical overhaul that analysts say will be difficult given the group’s reliance on giant depots.

Russia’s Central Bank has asked lenders to restructure loans to small and medium businesses that lost merchandise in the fires. Sellers who operated pickup points in affected cities report plummeting footfall and revenue, with some posting on social media that they are closing.

The losses mean tens of thousands of small businesses can no longer service loans or pay taxes, adding pressure to an economy already strained by tax increases, regulatory hurdles and fuel shortages after recent refinery attacks.

Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Ltd, said the strikes are part of a wider Ukrainian effort to undermine public confidence. “There is a segment of the manufacturing sectors in Russia and elsewhere that are definitely suffering significantly from that,” he said.

Wildberries has changed its seller policy to exempt itself from liability for stock damaged by “force majeure,” including drone attacks. Kim has pledged discounts on storage, free transfers of goods to safer sites, discounted loans and partial reimbursements, but many sellers say the measures cover only a fraction of their losses.

Mark Galeotti, head of the Mayak Intelligence consultancy and a Russia expert, said the depots were soft targets because they were not built to withstand drone strikes. “These are not military and high-value political targets, therefore they’re not especially secured,” he said.

The campaign has stretched more than 2,000 km from Ukraine’s border to Yekaterinburg in the Urals, showing Kyiv’s ability to project force deep inside Russia. Podolyak said the goal is to create a domino effect on the Russian economy by stressing major banks that financed Wildberries’ growth and disrupting supply chains that millions of small sellers depend on.