Smoke is rising after a Ukrainian attack on the online retailer Wildberries.Image: keystone
Ukrainian drones have hit the warehouse of the Russian online retailer Wildberries several times within a week. The damage mainly affects small retailers – with devastating consequences.
July 26, 2026, 02:11July 26, 2026, 02:11
Simon Cleven / t-online
For the third time in a week, Ukrainian drones attacked the warehouses of the Russian online retailer Wildberries on Friday. The destruction is great, at least eight people were killed. Kiev considers the company, which is of great importance to Russian consumers and traders, important in terms of Russian military logistics.
On Friday, several Wildberries logistics centers near St. Petersburg went up in flames, and a warehouse in Simferopol on the annexed Crimean Peninsula was also attacked. On Saturday, drones hit a camp near Yekaterinburg. A few days earlier, Wildberries locations in Krasnodar and Nevinnomysk in southern Russia were attacked; last weekend, camps in the capital region and Tambov Oblast were hit. All of these attacks sparked serious fires, with clouds of black smoke visible for miles.
Unlike Amazon, however, Wildberries primarily serves as a marketplace for companies. They can store their products in Wildberries warehouses, and the e-commerce platform then takes care of the logistics. However, Wildberries hardly offers its own products.
The Ukrainian attacks are therefore particularly hard on those small and medium-sized companies whose support Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin actually made it his mission to support. According to analysts, up to 800,000 retailers work with Wildberries.
“We are already being ripped off from all sides”
Blogger Marina Gorshkova said in a video that was shared online: “I cried all morning because our store might have to close.” She and her husband have been selling cosmetics for years, and 35 to 40 percent of their inventory was destroyed by the fires.
The British broadcaster BBC quotes another Russian entrepreneur who was affected by the destruction at Wildberries. “I am the mother of a disabled child and I built the company myself,” complained the woman. «I lost a million rubles. We are already being ripped off from all sides.”
Clothing retailer Arina told the independent Russian portal Bereg that she was affected by the fire in the warehouse in Elektrostal near Moscow. “There was this feeling of having been let down again,” she explained. It was very “uncomfortable” for her. She estimated the damage to her company at the equivalent of almost 6,500 francs.
Entrepreneur Olga explained to “Bereg” that she only found out about the damage through chat messages and videos on Telegram. “It was horrifying to see the footage of the fire and read about the people who died. The sheer scale of the incident was shocking.”
Damage in the billions
On Friday, several Wildberries logistics centers near St. Petersburg went up in flames, and a warehouse in Simferopol on the annexed Crimean Peninsula was also attacked. On Saturday, drones hit a camp near Yekaterinburg. A few days earlier, Wildberries locations in Krasnodar and Nevinnomysk in southern Russia were attacked; last weekend, camps in the capital region and Tambov Oblast were hit. All of these attacks sparked serious fires, with clouds of black smoke visible for miles.
The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on Thursday that the attacks had damaged around ten percent of Wildberries’ logistics capacity. The reconstruction of the warehouses could therefore cost the company up to the equivalent of 370 million francs – almost a fifth of Wildberries’ net profit from 2025. According to estimates, the damage to the retailers themselves after the attacks near Moscow and in the Tambov region alone could amount to a total of almost 150 billion rubles.
These numbers are likely to have increased again due to the attacks on the large logistics centers near St. Petersburg on Friday and the warehouse near Yekaterinburg on Saturday.
Wildberries promises compensation
Wildberries boss Tatjana Kim promised on Wednesday to pay sellers compensation for lost goods. “Primarily the smallest and least protected entrepreneurs” would be supported, she assured. However, there are numerous complaints from sellers online, for example about the amount of compensation. The traders who spoke to “Bereg” all expected no compensation at all, but unanimously assumed empty promises. According to them, some of them were already looking for alternatives to Wildberries as a trading venue.
The attacks on Wildberries warehouses are part of a Ukrainian campaign of long-range attacks on civilian infrastructure in Russia. The aim is to force the Kremlin to negotiate an end to the war. At the end of June, Zelensky announced a “40-day operation” to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. In addition to the Wildberries warehouses, Ukraine is particularly attacking refineries and oil terminals with drones, which has already led to fuel shortages in Russia.