Ukrainian attack drones flying hundreds of miles into Russian territory have been attacking oil refineries, military sites and now the country’s largest e-commerce warehouses. At least 10 facilities run by Russia’s largest online retail company, Wildberries, have been attacked by long-range drones in the past two weeks. Fixed-wing drones have been attacking the retail giant’s
Ukrainian attack drones flying hundreds of miles into Russian territory have been attacking oil refineries, military sites and now the country’s largest e-commerce warehouses.
At least 10 facilities run by Russia’s largest online retail company, Wildberries, have been attacked by long-range drones in the past two weeks.
Fixed-wing drones have been attacking the retail giant’s facilities in the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, annexed Crimea and other regions since July 18, starting large fires and killing at least nine people.
kyiv’s strike campaign has been widely seen as an effort to put pressure on the Russian economy by sinking one of the country’s largest markets. Wildberries’ parent group, RWB, reported around $73 billion in gross merchandise value last year.
It is estimated that the company has lost more than 9% of its warehouse space due to the July attacks alone. Like Amazon, it operates an online platform that allows merchants to list their products for sale and use its warehouses to store their inventory before delivery.
That means that the assets destroyed in the strikes mostly belong to individual business owners. Wildberries merchants also sell tactical equipment, dual-use products and drone components, which Ukraine has cited as a reason to attack the company.
Wildberries is not the only online marketplace in Russia. Ozon, its biggest competitor, also sells military equipment, but has not yet been a major target. Alexander NEMENOV / AFP via Getty Images
Russia is already starting to feel the strain. State bank Sberbank said on Wednesday that about 300 companies that applied for loans were requesting delays in payments or changes to their conditions since the attacks.
Sberbank added that it may have to increase its reserves to cover loan defaults. The bank’s chief financial officer, Taras Skvortsov, said no decision had yet been made, but offered an optimistic outlook, saying the retail market “will cope with this situation and come out of it with its heads held high.”
Billions in losses as attacks continue
Meanwhile, Wildberries changed its compensation policy on July 7 to include drone and missile attacks as force majeure events, exempting the company from liability for the loss of a trader’s property.
Forbes Russia estimated on July 21 that two Ukrainian attacks had cost merchants at least $1.87 billion in goods. Since then, eight more warehouses have been hit by major drone attacks.
Wildberries was launched in 2004 by Tatyana Kim, a teacher who started the website in an apartment in Moscow.
His company has skyrocketed to prominence in recent years and now accounts for more than half of all online orders in Russia. Kim is listed by Bloomberg as Russia’s richest self-made woman, with an estimated net worth of $8.1 billion.
In 2021, Wildberries purchased a small regional bank to help make payments and loans for its merchants and customers.
Tatyana Kim is the billionaire founder of Wildberries. Contributor/Getty Images
Kim told Russian media that Wildberries would compensate some merchants who lost their products during the strikes, although he did not reveal the extent. If the attacks continue, covering all losses would probably be too much for Wildberries; The company’s parent group posted a net profit of $2.1 billion in 2025.
Wildberries did not respond to a request for comment sent outside of normal business hours by Business Insider.
‘Everything for the SVO’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not specifically name Wildberries, but confirmed that kyiv has been involved in attacks on Russian warehouses.
“The aggressor used them to supply authorized components for the production of drones and navigation equipment,” Zelenskyy said on July 18 of the first two warehouses attacked.
The Kremlin has denied that Wildberries handles supplies for the Russian military, and its spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, accused Ukraine of attacking “civilian targets.”
However, Wildberries has included listings for equipment such as drone flight control goggles, tactical vests with bulletproof plates, and field rations under a search tag titled “Everything for the SVO,” a reference to the special military operation, or the Russian term for the Ukrainian war.
Earlier this week, the label was removed from Wildberries’ marketplace website.
It is not immediately clear what unmanned systems Ukraine used to attack the warehouses. Fire Point, which makes one of the most widely used long-range attack drones, said its FP-1 propeller-driven drone was used in at least one attack in Ryazan.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it expects its long-range strikes to suppress Russian revenues and disrupt the economy, creating internal pressure that could erode Moscow’s ability to continue the war.