Ukrainian logistics and retail facilities<\/a>.<\/p>\nAn AP search of the Wildberries website showed goods that could be used for both civilian and military purposes, such as body armour, helmets, radios and other electronics. Some were even marked as \u201ctested in the SVO\u201d or \u201cSVO fighters\u2019 choice\u201d \u2014 a Russian acronym for \u201cspecial military operation,” the term the Kremlin uses for the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Kim responded Friday in a statement that said other online sellers offered the same goods, adding there was \u201cno logic, common sense, or rationality\u201d to the attacks, which she said aimed to \u201ctrigger panic and shock” among Russians.<\/p>\n
Attacks stretch across Russia<\/p>\n
The July 18 strikes began a series of attacks on Wildberries facilities that now total 16 in under two weeks.<\/p>\n
Sites were hit last week in the southern Krasnodar and Stavropol regions, St. Petersburg, the adjacent Leningrad region and Simferopol in Crimea.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, a Wildberries depot burned in the Penza region southeast of Moscow, with four people injured and 200 workers evacuated, said Gov. Oleg Melnichenko. Wildberries said another warehouse in Sarapul in the Udmurtia region was attacked by a drone but all workers got out safely.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Wildberries said a logistics facility in Volgograd was hit, and Russian news outlet Astra reported a company depot was set ablaze in Zelenodolsk, near Kazan in the Tatarstan region.<\/p>\n
Small businesses are suffering<\/p>\n
The attacks have dealt a massive blow to many small Russian businesses, Semko said.<\/p>\n
Wildberries and its online competitors Ozon and Yandex Market allow craftsmen and entrepreneurs to sell their goods across Russia\u2019s vast territory, he said.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-man-carrying-a-package-leaves-an-outlet-of-russias-major-o-W4Y5JX546NAFZH2KYZSUCVPLMA.jpg\")
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A man carrying a package leaves an outlet of Russia’s major online retailer Wildberries in Moscow. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
People have taken to social media to say inventory for their businesses that was stored in the stricken Wildberries facilities had been destroyed, tearfully recounting their losses.<\/p>\n
The extent of the damage is unclear. Wildberries said it took three days to extinguish the fire in Elektrostal, a distribution hub for Moscow, while the Tambov region site only resumed operations five days later. After an attack in Ryazan, Wildberries said most of the goods were saved.<\/p>\n
Kim said on Friday that Wildberries has been \u201creinforcing and strengthening” defences at its sites and was able to repel most of the attacks.<\/p>\n
To support the sellers, Wildberries offered discounts on storage fees, free transfer of goods to other sites, discounted loans at the Wildberries Bank and other measures.<\/p>\n
Many still wondered if they would be compensated. Earlier in July, Wildberries changed its seller policy, exempting it from liability for stock damaged because of a \u201cforce majeure\u201d that includes drone attacks.<\/p>\n
Since the initial attacks, Kim said Wildberries began reimbursing sellers. \u201cFirst and foremost, we want to support the smallest and most vulnerable entrepreneurs \u2014 there are more than 88,000 of them,” she said.<\/p>\n
Wildberries said on Thursday it distributed a second tranche of reimbursement to over 97,000 businesses, and Kim added Friday a \u201cunified assistance system\u201d of payouts was being developed.<\/p>\n
Semko cautioned there isn’t enough data to make an assessment, but he estimated the stricken facilities in the Moscow, Tambov, Krasnodar and Stavropol regions accounted for about 12% of Wildberries\u2019 total warehouse space. He said the losses of goods stored there could be as high as US$3 billion (NZ$5.1 billion).<\/p>\n
Those losses, amid increased taxes, a fuel crisis and more regulatory hurdles, have created \u201calmost a perfect storm\u201d for many small businesses this year, he said.<\/p>\n
Strikes also undermine Russian morale<\/p>\n
Russia’s online retail sector has grown rapidly since 2022, said Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Ltd. Consultancy, accounting for about 20% of all retail sales, and \u201cthat comes from about much less than half of that five years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Western brands withdrew amid the war, Wildberries and Ozon sourced similar products from Asia, the United Arab Emirates or T\u00fcrkiye, leading to the rapid growth in online business, Weafer said.<\/p>\n
He estimated Russia’s e-commerce sector to be worth around US$150 billion (NZ$255.5 billion), and online retail around US$80 billion (NZ$136 billion) to US$90 billion (NZ$153 billion) of that.<\/p>\n
The warehouse attacks add to the pain felt by small businesses, which recently are \u201cstruggling very badly,\u201d Weafer said, while probably causing only \u201crelatively slight\u201d damage to the industry and the economy in general, which he described as effectively stagnant but stable.<\/p>\n
Rather, he said, it’s about \u201cundermining public morale, and getting people to talk much more\u201d about the war and question the Kremlin’s actions. Since the fighting began, Russians appeared largely complacent about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was something that was happening a long way off,\u201d Weafer said. But that has changed this year, with attacks on Russian oil refineries and now Wildberries, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is now much more awareness, but there\u2019s also much more discussion, and more people are questioning what\u2019s going on and why is it happening and the conflict lasting so long,\u201d he said. \u201cIt brings it home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Jetstar\u2019s carry-on changes, and Ariana Grande addresses her fans. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine’s attacks on the sprawling Russian warehouses have produced stark images, with massive pillars of smoke rising above…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,1979,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-559083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-russia-invades-ukraine","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-name-of-an-outlet-of-russias-major-online-retailer-wildb-KKUFRRGBP5CFNL54B4MSW2CQK4.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n