Wildberries Loses Goods Worth a Major Russian Region’s Annual Budget

Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries have destroyed or damaged a significant share of its warehouse network, with goods worth an estimated 480 billion rubles ($5.7 billion) lost in the attacks, according to Data Insight analysts cited by The New York Times.

The losses are roughly comparable to the annual budgets of some of Russia’s wealthier regions and underscore the growing economic impact of Ukraine’s campaign against the company’s logistics infrastructure.

According to The New York Times, Ukraine has targeted at least 23 Wildberries facilities since mid-July, with nine company workers reportedly killed in the attacks.

Wildberries loses a third of its warehouse capacity

Data Insight estimates that Wildberries has lost up to one-third of its warehouse space following repeated Ukrainian drone strikes.

The destroyed or damaged facilities contained goods worth about 480 billion rubles ($5.7 billion), a figure comparable to the annual budgets of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk Krai, at 527 billion rubles ($6.3 billion), and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, at 476 billion rubles ($5.6 billion).

The losses are even larger when compared with poorer Russian regions. The estimated value of destroyed goods is around 1.6 times the annual budget of Irkutsk Oblast and roughly four times the budgets of Smolensk and Penza regions.

“Wildberries has almost run out of its biggest warehouses,” Data Insight analyst Sergei Semko told The New York Times. “Every single day one warehouse after another is getting methodically destroyed.”

Reuters separately reported that at least 1.18 million square meters (292 acres) of Wildberries warehouse space – more than one-fifth of its total capacity – had been damaged or destroyed.

Russia struggles to compensate sellers

The attacks have also hit tens of thousands of businesses that rely on Wildberries to store and deliver their products.

The Russian government is preparing support measures for affected sellers, including tax breaks, loan holidays, and preferential loans. However, direct compensation for destroyed goods is not currently planned.

A Kremlin-linked source told Reuters that the Russian budget does not have the hundreds of billions of rubles needed to fully support affected sellers and warned that the disruption could trigger a wave of bankruptcies.

Wildberries has made voluntary payments to tens of thousands of sellers who lost inventory and has introduced limited insurance coverage for drone attacks.

The damage is also spreading to the company’s network of pickup points. Reuters reported that more than 3,100 franchised Wildberries pickup points were listed for sale across Russia as of Wednesday, Aug. 12.

One Moscow operator told Reuters that his deliveries had fallen from around 400 parcels a day to about 150. He said the business had become loss-making and that he was trying to sell it.

Why Ukraine is targeting Wildberries

Ukraine has increasingly targeted Wildberries as part of a campaign aimed at bringing the economic consequences of the war to ordinary Russians.

Kyiv has argued that Wildberries is a legitimate military target because the marketplace sells goods used by the Russian military. The company denies supplying the Russian armed forces and says weapons and military equipment are prohibited on its platform.

However, The New York Times found that first-person-view drones (FPV), fiber-optic cable, and other equipment with potential military applications were available on Wildberries in early August.

The marketplace accounts for around 10% of Russian retail sales, according to The New York Times, making the disruption significant for Russia’s wider consumer economy.

Reuters reported that online marketplaces including Wildberries handle goods and services equivalent to around 8.5% of Russia’s economy.

The attacks have already affected consumer spending. SberIndex reported a sharp decline in spending on non-food goods through marketplaces in recent weeks.

Wildberries’ billionaire co-founder Tatyana Kim has condemned the strikes as “terrorist attacks,” saying they are intended to destabilize the company and create panic among Russians.

Meanwhile, competitors such as Ozon could benefit from the disruption. Industry analysts have reported signs that some Wildberries sellers are moving to the rival marketplace, whose more decentralized logistics network has not been targeted by Ukraine to the same extent.