Berries out of the fire. Ukrainian drone campaign repeatedly hits Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer

Wildberries was founded in 2004 by Tatyana Kim—then Tatyana Bakalchuk—who built it into the country’s major marketplace and became Russia’s richest woman. For millions of Russians, it’s is a fixture of daily life.

The deadliest strike came on July 18, when Ukrainian drones hit Wildberries logistics centres in the Tambov and Moscow regions. Regional authorities said seven people were killed and 25 injured at a warehouse in Tambov region. Officials claimed the drones carried “metal ball bearings” intended to maximise casualties. At the company’s warehouse in Elektrostal, east of Moscow, one person was killed and 61 others were reported injured after officials revised earlier casualty figures.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said the targeted warehouses were Russian logistics facilities used to supply war materiel, including navigation equipment and components for drone production. While Wildberries has not addressed it directly, the marketplace does openly sell dual-use goods such as drone parts and body armor. A senior Ukrainian official, cited by the Financial Times’ Christopher Miller, offered a second rationale: retaliation for Russian strikes on terminals of Nova Poshta, Ukraine’s largest private postal and logistics company.

The attacks have continued almost daily since then. On July 20, authorities and Russian media reported damage to another Wildberries warehouse in Podolsk during a broader drone attack on Moscow region that injured ten people. Two days later, Ukrainian drones struck the company’s logistics centres in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk.

Wildberries founder Tatyana Kim said employees had been evacuated before the attacks, but Krasnodar governor Veniamin Kondratyev later said one woman died from her injuries and ten other people were hurt. Five people were reported injured at the warehouse in Nevinnomyssk.

On July 23, officials in Voronezh region said the roof of one marketplace warehouse and the facade of another had been damaged during another overnight attack. Although the governor did not identify the companies involved, the affected area includes logistics centres operated by Wildberries and Ozon, another major marketplace.

The following day, drone strikes again targeted Wildberries facilities in several regions. Authorities in Leningrad region said three people were injured after a warehouse in the village of Novosaratovka caught fire. Local media also reported a fire at the company’s logistics complex in Shushary, while Wildberries temporarily suspended operations at both facilities. Kim later confirmed that another company warehouse in Simferopol had also come under attack, saying part of the buildings and stored goods had been saved.

As the strikes have spread, Russian authorities have also moved to suppress public documentation of their consequences. On July 24, police in Krasnodar detained a 19-year-old woman after she posted video showing the aftermath of the July 22 strike on the city’s Wildberries warehouse. She faces a fine.

Much of the loss falls on the third-party sellers whose goods filled the warehouses. In a detail that has angered many of them, Wildberries amended its terms of service on July 7, eleven days before the first strike, to classify drone attacks as force majeure, releasing the company from any formal obligation to compensate sellers. It has since begun voluntary payments that sellers describe as inadequate.