Ukraine drone strikes Wildberries warehouses have cut 10% of the retailer’s warehousing capacity. The Kremlin has said it may have to support Wildberries after the attacks, turning damage to storage space into a wider question about state backing for one of Russia’s biggest online sellers.
Wildberries has already paid out 40 million roubles, or US$508,582, to the families of people killed or injured in the warehouse attacks. Dmitry Peskov praised the company for helping third-party sellers whose goods were stored in the damaged facilities, a signal that the losses extend beyond the company’s own inventory.
The Kremlin and Wildberries
A senior industry source told that Wildberries might need government support through state-controlled banks to keep operating at current scale. That possibility matters because Wildberries and VTB sit inside the same pressure point: one side needs liquidity, the other is part of the financial system that could be asked to help stabilize it.
Denys Shtilerman said Wildberries was being targeted partly because of its partnership with VTB. Denys Shtilerman also said Wildberries was the largest borrower in Russia and warned that Wildberries’ demise would lead to the collapse of a large number of banks, including VTB.
Kyiv and Wildberries
Kyiv says its forces are attacking Wildberries because of its role in supplying Moscow’s army, and Kyiv has described the company as “Russia’s Amazon.” That makes the warehouse strikes more than a retail problem: the attacks now sit at the intersection of logistics, finance, and war supply chains.
Marina Gorshkova, a Wildberries seller, told her Instagram audience of 1.3 million people that she was appealing to “the country’s leadership.” Her plea shows how the damage has reached sellers whose stock sat in the warehouses when the attacks hit.
State support question
Wildberries and Ozon are central to the Russian government’s plans to spur economic growth, even as higher military spending and a broader slowdown squeeze the economy. The immediate unanswered issue is which government support measure, if any, the Kremlin or state-controlled banks will provide to Wildberries after the drone attacks cut into warehousing capacity.
For sellers tied to the platform, the next move will determine whether losses stay inside Wildberries or spread into financing and stock replacement across its merchant base. The company has already paid compensation, and the size of any further support will show how far Russia is prepared to go to keep one of its main retail systems operating.
