Ukraine takes aim at Russia’s economy and morale by attacking online retailer

Day after day over recent weeks, Ukrainian drones have pummeled giant depots belonging to Wildberries, the country’s biggest online retailer, burning estimated billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise and bringing the war home to the broad public

The attacks began on a July weekend and have continued for a month, stretching from Moscow and St. Petersburg, to cities in the south, and eastward to the Ural Mountains. The targets weren't oil refineries, maritime hubs or arms plants hit by other Ukrainian strikes, but warehouses that bring the convenience of online shopping across the breadth of Russia.

Ukraine's drones have pummeled the giant depots belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise and bringing the war home to the broad public.

The attacks on about 20 Wildberries facilities have underlined Kyiv’s ability to strike far and wide inside Russia and posed a new challenge to President Vladimir Putin nearly 4½ years into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

They have badly shaken the empire built by Tatyana Kim, the country’s richest female entrepreneur, whose fortune has been estimated at $8.1 billion.

Hundreds of thousands of individual sellers have lost their merchandise, sending shock waves across Russia’s economy. Wildberries has drawn massive loans from VTB and other banks as it expanded and likely will have trouble repaying them, putting more pressure on the financial system.

Kim, 50, was born in Grozny, the capital of the province of Chechnya, to an ethnic Korean family of an engineer and a teacher. She launched Wildberries in 2004 from her Moscow apartment soon after giving birth to her first child while working as an English teacher.

“The idea was born from my own needs, and turned out to be needed by hundreds of thousands,” said Kim, now a mother of seven. “If a product or service makes your own life easier, you’re on the right track.”

Wildberries initially sold clothing before expanding to appliances, household items, cosmetics, books and more. The platform with its distinct purple logo has become an undisputed leader in e-commerce, accounting for about half of all online orders in Russia. Businesses big and small use it to store, ship and deliver merchandise across the country's 11 time zones.

An estimated 500,000 to 800,000 sellers use Wildberries, often described as Russia's Amazon. After Western brands fled following the war in Ukraine, online retailers filled the void with merchandise from China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.

The company also acquired a bank, expanded to tourism and even considered buying an airline.

In 2024, Kim divorced her husband, Vladislav Bakalchuk, triggering a fight for control of the company.