Ukrainian strikes hit a pair of Wildberries storage facilities on Monday night, as well as another location associated with the retailer near the Russian capital.
The strikes are part of Ukraine’s ongoing strikes against targets within Russia, which have included the online retailer that provides services similar to Amazon.
Putin At a Conference Creative Commons Photo
Putin In September of 2022 Creative Commons Photo
The strikes are a significant expansion of Kyiv’s strikes against Russia proper and bring the war in Ukraine into stark focus for a Russian public that has been largely shielded from the effects of the war happening just over their border with Ukraine.
Wildberries
The online retailer, founded in the mid-2000s, is Russia’s biggest.
While it provides services and operates widely across Russia, Wildberries also serves the Russian military.
One online resource compiles military equipment that can be purchased via the website, with kits ranging from body armor and helmets to drones and first aid kits.
Posts on Russian social media showed images and videos of the strikes, with thick, acrid clouds of smoke billowing into the sky from the sites.
Wildberries’ annual turnover is estimated at €70 to €75 billion. While Amazon’s annual turnover is around ten times as large, Wildberries accounts for a little over two percent of Russia’s GDP and employs more than 100,000 people in the country.
Founder Tatiana Kim, sometimes called Russia’s wealthiest woman, and her company are both under several international sanctions regimes.
Like Amazon, individuals can sell goods on the site.
But Ukrainian strikes against Wildberries’ warehouse facilities have hit small businesses hard, leaving many scrambling to find financial relief in the form of state support, tax breaks, and loans.
Given the importance of the online retailer to Russia, there is speculation that the Russian state could step in to offer support to the company and its users.
Wildberries is one of the largest non-energy businesses that contribute to the Russian budget through tax revenue, and the company’s banking branch was placed under sanctions by the European Union earlier this summer.
Long-range Sanctions
The strikes are part of Ukraine’s ongoing operations in the Russian heartland. Those strikes, which include explosive-laden one-way attack drones as well as cruise missiles, have targeted a range of facilities throughout Russia, though primarily Russia’s oil and gas refineries.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dubbed the ongoing strikes his country’s “long-range sanctions” regime against Russia, a campaign that is aimed squarely at one of the Russian state’s primary revenue sources: the export of oil and refined energy products.
As part of that effort, Russian oil refineries across the country have erupted in smoke and flames, sometimes on multiple occasions. One of the more remarkable strikes hit an oil refinery in Omsk, in Russia’s Siberia region about 2,500 kilometers or 1,550 miles from the front lines of Ukraine, and forced the facility, Russia’s largest, to halt operations.
Russian oil refining dropped precipitously in July, sinking to its lowest level in more than two decades according to reporting by Bloomberg.
Last month, Russia refined about 3.6 million barrels of oil per day, about a third lower than expected for the period, when processing is typically around 5.3 million to 5.6 million barrels per day.
The strikes have forced Russia to face a difficult question: to dedicate additional air defenses to protect oil and gas facilities in Russia, but risking dangerous gaps in its air defense umbrella over occupied parts of Ukraine.
Wildberries and the Russian War Machine
One investigation by Meduza, a Russian opposition outlet, found that although a number of items explicitly military in nature, including firearms, ammunition, and explosives, are prohibited from sale on the Wildberries platform, a number of other goods, including components for drones, radios, and other dual-use items, are for sale.
Some of these items boast their credentials, explaining they are “tested in the SVO” and “chosen by SVO fighters.”
SVO is the Russian abbreviation for the “special military operation” as the war in Ukraine is known in Russia, and one section of the Wildberries platform is called “Everything for the SVO”.
However, Meduza also found that another online retailer, Ozon, is used more often than its Wildberries competitor for certain items, particularly drone components, but has not been targeted by Ukrainian forces.
About the Author: Caleb Larson
Caleb Larson is an American multiformat journalist based in Berlin, Germany. His work covers the intersection of conflict and society, focusing on American foreign policy and European security. He has reported from Germany, Russia, and the United States. Most recently, he covered the war in Ukraine, reporting extensively on the war’s shifting battle lines from Donbas and writing on the war’s civilian and humanitarian toll. Previously, he worked as a Defense Reporter for POLITICO Europe. You can follow his latest work on X.
