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For a week now, Ukrainian drones have been attacking warehouses that are a key part of Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries.
Transportation facilities in St. Petersburg were hit on Thursday night. Video verified by CBC News and Reuters shows dozens of drones exploding as they crash into the facilities, resulting in flames that appear to have completely destroyed the storage facilities. It is estimated that goods worth billions of rands burst into flames.
The attacks began last weekend, one in the city of Kotovsk, which is 360 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, and the other in the city of Elektrostal, which is 50 kilometers east of Moscow. Nine people died and 80 others were injured.
Another attack happened early Wednesday. Ukrainian drones hit Wildberries warehouses in Krasnodar and Stavropol. A confirmed video of those incidents went viral on social media.
Ukraine has been raiding the warehouses of the retail giant Wildberries in Russia. Drone strikes have killed night workers and destroyed the property of many vendors. Here are the facts about Wildberries – and why Ukraine targets these areas.
The strikes at Wildberries warehouses were confirmed by company founder Tatyana Kim in a statement after the attack, as well as Russian officials.
At least seven warehouses have been hit so far.
What are Wildberries?
Wild berries are often called the equivalent of the Amazon in Russia. By some estimates, they account for half of all internet sales in the country.
Wildberries was launched in 2004 by Kim, a teacher and young mother at the time, focusing, initially, on selling clothes.
Since then, the platform has become an industry leader and household name, allowing businesses large and small alike to sell their goods to customers across the country by storing, shipping and delivering their inventory. In April, Forbes Russia estimated Kim’s wealth at US$8.1 billion.
Kim said last year, the company had more than 200 facilities covering more than 5.2 million square feet, with plans to build warehouses this year in Belarus and Kazakhstan, where Wildberries operate. It also operates in Russian-held Crimea.
Does Wildberries supply military equipment?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not specifically name Wildberries, but said the facilities his country attacked were involved in supplying gear and other technical equipment to the Russian military.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that “this is not the case” and accused Kyiv of continuing “targeted strikes on civilians.”
A search of the Wildberries website shows that it sells certain products for military use, such as body armor, helmets and radios. But this site also sells a wide variety of products in almost every category, including books, clothes, cosmetics, toys, appliances, sporting goods, household goods, pharmaceuticals and more.
Some traders have suffered heavy losses
It is unclear how many vendors there are at Wildberries, but estimates are between 500,000 and 800,000.
Russian fashion designer Viktoria Terekhova says she sent almost her entire collection of children’s clothes last summer to a department store in Elektrostal, east of Moscow.
Within days, it was destroyed in a Ukrainian drone strike. Terekhova says she lost 12,000 items, about 45 percent of her company’s total, and another 4,000 items in the attack on the Wildberries facility in southern Russia.
Oleg Kondratyev, the founder of the Airbase clothing company that produces mainly women’s tracksuits, said he lost about five million rubles ($90,000) in the raid.
That put him in a bad financial position, he said.
“For today, we can’t pay our loan because sales of Wildberries have stopped. Tax payments have not been paid, but they will be soon, and we probably won’t be able to pay those,” said Kondratyev.
