Ukrainian drones have hit several commercial warehouses belonging to Wildberries, Russia's largest online retailer, in a matter of days, dealing a blow to a large number of small and medium-sized businesses.

After months of drone attacks on oil depots and refineries, Kyiv says it is now targeting logistics centers that the Russians use to acquire military equipment, as well as disrupting supplies to the Russian military.

However, this has also frustrated hundreds of Russian sellers who rely on online marketplaces to make a living, making the war feel closer to home after nearly four and a half years.

“I am the mother of a child with a disability; I have built this business by myself,” complained a woman in a social media post, riddled with insults and outbursts, that went viral.

"I have lost a million rubles (US$12,700). They are already beating us from all sides for this to happen."

In Ukraine's first attack on Wildberries over the weekend, two warehouses were hit: one in Elektrostal, east of Moscow, and another in Kotovsk, in the Tambov region, about 400 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Seven night shift workers were killed in Kotovsk and another was fatally injured at Elektrostal. Dozens more were injured and an estimated US$1 billion worth of goods was destroyed.

Kyiv claimed to have hit “important logistics facilities” used to “supply components for the production of drones and navigation equipment.”

More logistics centers were attacked in the early hours of Monday, including another Wildberries warehouse in Koledino, south of Moscow. New attacks overnight into Wednesday hit Wildberries logistics centers in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk, Stavropol region.

The owner of the company, Tatiana Kim, reported that more victims had been registered.

“We are, in all fairness, returning the war home to Russia,” declared Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

A new strategy

Russia has attacked Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, and recent Russian attacks have also hit Ukrainian warehouses and cargo terminals.

Sorting terminals at Ukraine's largest private postal operator, Nova Poshta, have been attacked, as have warehouses owned by retail chain ATB and confectionery group Roshen.

With the situation on the front increasingly close to a stalemate, the Ukrainian long-range drone campaign has hit supply routes and energy facilities, effectively isolating the Crimea region (annexed by the Kremlin in 2014) and causing fuel shortages in parts of Russia.

Businesses had already been affected before the warehouse attacks, but now some have lost much of their stock overnight.

It is estimated that between 85% and 90% of Russia's economically active population use Wildberries and its rival Ozon.

In many remote areas where stores are scarce, Russians depend on these platforms for a large part of their purchases, from clothing to household appliances.

The Kremlin has denied that online platforms are used to supply the military, but they sell various military-related products, such as bulletproof vests, as well as items that have both civilian applications and for the production of drones.

Pro-war bloggers say these platforms are routinely used by volunteers to purchase equipment that is then sent to the front.

However, there is no independent confirmation that the attacked warehouses stored such supplies.

How they work

Unlike Western retail giant Amazon, which sells products directly as well as running a third-party marketplace, Wildberries and Ozon operate almost exclusively as intermediary platforms, connecting independent sellers with buyers across Russia, storing and delivering their goods and handling payments.

This means that a large portion of the losses caused by the attacks have fallen directly on companies.

For a woman selling stationery, Wildberries is the only distribution channel. The day after delivering his merchandise to the Elektrostal warehouse near Moscow last Friday, he learned that everything had been reduced to ashes.

He still has other stock, but this time of year is especially important for his business, as parents and students stock up for the new school year.

Another trader at Wildberries, which sells clothing for teenagers, told the BBC that she had lost merchandise worth approximately 1.4 million rubles ($15,000). It has decided to suspend new shipments for a few weeks.

“The prospects for continuing to work with Wildberries are very uncertain,” he noted.

“For now I have enough financial cushion to withstand the current losses, but if more attacks occur, I probably won't be able to continue.”

Neither woman expects to receive compensation. Earlier this month, less than two weeks before the attacks, a clause was added to their contracts that included drone strikes on the list of “force majeure events” for which Wildberries takes no responsibility.

The company's owner, Tatiana Kim, has promised to “not abandon” the sellers and some compensation has already been paid to several small businesses. It has also offered temporary discounts and waived shipping fees, although these measures have done little to calm fears of further attacks.

Support for small and medium-sized businesses has been one of Vladimir Putin's stated priorities even in times of war, presenting them as a backbone of economic resistance to Western sanctions.

Economy at risk

However, the Russian State has not been able to protect the sector from the impact of the war, and since the beginning of the year companies have suffered several shocks.

VAT increased from 20% to 22% in January, allocating additional funds to defence, and some tax advantages were removed for certain businesses.

According to the business intelligence platform Kontur.Fokus, some 209,000 small and medium-sized businesses closed during the first quarter of 2026. This is 9% more than in the first three months of 2025.

Frequent internet outages and a crackdown on popular messaging apps caused additional problems, with Moscow businesses losing tens of millions of dollars in a single week in March, according to some estimates.

And then came the fuel crisis, triggered by Ukrainian attacks on oil depots, refineries and supply routes.

"There are already many nails, and the hammering continues. Is this attack another nail in the coffin? Well yes, of course," Professor Ruben Enikolopov, from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, ​​told the BBC.

Russian small businesses have shown resilience in the past, but inflation remains high, the budget deficit is widening and oil and gas revenues are 23% lower than in the first six months of the previous year.

Russia has enormous financial reserves accumulated in peacetime, but the war in Ukraine absorbs more and more resources, progressively depriving the civilian economy of growth opportunities.

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