Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign has expanded to target Russia’s largest online marketplace, Wildberries, with at least ten of the company’s logistics facilities struck since mid-July in attacks that have caused major fires and killed at least six to nine people, according to Ukrainian and Russian sources tracking the strikes.
The fixed-wing attack drones have hit Wildberries warehouses in the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, the Tver region, annexed Crimea and several cities in southern Russia, with strikes occurring almost daily since around July 18. One attack on a facility in the Kirov region alone killed at least six people, according to reporting from the Moscow Times, with dozens more injured, including migrant workers from Central Asia who make up a large share of the warehouse workforce.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed that his armed forces are behind the strikes, framing them as part of a broader campaign against Russian logistics networks. “The operation against Russian logistics, which supplies the occupying army with drone components, navigation equipment and military gear, remains underway,” Zelensky said, according to NPR. Ukrainian officials allege that Wildberries facilities have been used to store and distribute drone parts and other equipment bound for the Russian military, a claim Wildberries has not publicly addressed in detail.
Wildberries’ parent group, RWB, reported roughly 3 billion dollars in gross merchandise value last year, and functions similarly to Amazon by allowing outside merchants to list products and use company warehouses for storage and fulfillment. Industry estimates suggest the company has lost more than 9% of its total warehouse space to the July strikes alone, a significant blow to a business built on rapid, centralized logistics.
The economic fallout has begun rippling through Russia’s financial system. State-controlled Sberbank has said that roughly 300 companies that took out loans tied to their Wildberries operations have requested payment delays or changes to loan terms since the attacks began, according to reporting cited by the Moscow Times. Merchants who relied on the destroyed warehouses for inventory have also faced sudden losses of stock, forcing many to seek emergency financing.
Kyiv’s strikes on Wildberries mark an escalation beyond the energy and military-industrial targets that have dominated its long-range drone campaign for much of the war, suggesting an effort to pressure the broader Russian civilian economy and consumer sector rather than solely military supply chains. Similar strikes have continued into late July, including a fire at a Wildberries facility in the Penza region that injured one person and forced the evacuation of roughly 200 workers.
Russian officials have condemned the strikes as attacks on civilian infrastructure, while Ukrainian officials maintain the warehouses serve a dual military purpose. Neither side has signaled the campaign will ease, with fresh strikes reported on Wildberries sites in different regions nearly every few days since the campaign began.
Sources: The Moscow Times, NPR, Kyiv Independent