The founder and CEO of Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, on Friday called Ukraine’s two-week drone campaign against its warehouses a series of “terrorist attacks” and said the company will not compensate sellers for losses caused by the strikes.
“For nearly two weeks now, our company’s warehouses have been under terrorist attack. Why our warehouses, of all places? Attacks against us are attacks against hundreds of millions of people in 10 countries at once,” Tatyana Kim, Russia’s wealthiest woman, said in an address to sellers and customers posted on her Telegram channel.
Ukraine has targeted at least 13 Wildberries logistics centers since mid-July, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reportedly destroying about 10 percent of the company’s storage capacity. The most recent strikes hit a warehouse in the southern city of Volgograd, where a fire broke out, and a facility in Zelenodolsk in the Republic of Tatarstan, regional officials and monitoring channels reported.
Kim said more than 200 drones were launched in a single attack on the company’s Yekaterinburg center. She claimed that entrepreneurs in Russia and partner countries, including China and Kazakhstan, had “suffered losses amounting to billions.” Wildberries accounts for almost 50 percent of Russia’s online retail market, according to market estimates, making it a linchpin of the country’s consumer economy and a vendor to the Russian war effort.
Describing the strikes as “force majeure,” Kim said the company is not legally obligated to compensate affected sellers. “Whether or not this clause is included in the terms of service is irrelevant; therefore, these losses are not subject to compensation under the law,” she said, urging sellers to wait for a “comprehensive package of support measures” from the Russian government.
Kyiv says the campaign is intended to disrupt Russian military logistics, pointing to dual-use goods sold on the platform, including bulletproof vests and fiber-optic cable used for drones. Kim rejected the accusation. “You can visit any global marketplace, Amazon or Alibaba, and see for yourself whether we have anything they don’t,” she said. Wildberries has begun hiding war-related goods from its search results.
Kim insisted the company was “successfully repelling most of the attacks” and that its warehouses were “equipped with every available means of protection,” including air defense systems, while acknowledging that damage resulted from the “intensity of Ukrainian firepower.”
The campaign illustrates how Ukraine is using long-range drones to strike Russia’s wartime economy and logistics far beyond the front line. Under international law, facilities that effectively contribute to military action can be legitimate targets, though strikes on civilian warehouses carry reputational risk for Kyiv. Kim closed her address by urging Russian businesses to “keep a cool head,” adding: “Together, we are stronger. Because Wildberries is you.”
Sources: The Kyiv Independent, The Guardian, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Author: Ukraine Desk
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