Ukraine has ratcheted up its attacks on Russia’s Amazon-style retail giant, Wildberries, signaling a new phase in the war as Kyiv seeks to inflict fresh pain on the Russian economy.
Ukrainian defense forces have struck major logistics centers on Russian territory over the past week, including five facilities belonging to Wildberries in the period from Saturday through to Wednesday.
The attacks, which follow months of drone strikes on Russian oil depots and refineries, appear designed to severely disrupt Moscow’s supply chains and increase the financial burden facing the country’s businesses and state budget.
Wildberries is Russia’s biggest online retailer and its equivalent to U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon. Founded in 2004, the company currently employs about 48,000 people.
“Ukraine has found a new point of pressure to exert against Russia,” Jimmy Rushton, an independent foreign policy analyst based in Ukraine, said Wednesday via social media.
“If these attacks continue, ‘Wildberries’ (Russia’s equivalent of Amazon and just as important to their domestic logistics as Amazon is in the U.S. or U.K.), will cease to exist,” he added.
The company’s owner and Russia’s wealthiest woman, Tatyana Kim, said Wednesday that logistics hubs belonging to Wildberries in two southwest cities in the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions were both struck overnight.
One person was killed in the attack, Kim said, with several others reported to have been injured. The drone strikes followed separate attacks on the retailer’s warehouses in central Russia four days earlier, killing eight people, according to Russian authorities.
“There are no words to describe all the feelings and emotions caused by the attacks on ordinary people, on our employees, on us, who are simply doing our jobs,” Kim said via Telegram, according to a translation.
“But these situations demonstrate the most important thing: we must continue to do what we do for the benefit of people,” she added.
Logistics hubs likely to remain a key target
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the hubs targeted by Ukrainian drones were involved in providing Russian forces with drone components, navigation equipment and other military components.
Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center think tank, said the strikes on Wildberries serve a dual purpose: to hamper Russia’s economy and reduce the capabilities of its military industrial complex.
“The destruction of this logistics infrastructure deals a significant blow to Russia’s economy and, consequently, to its state budget, which funds the armed aggression against Ukraine,” Kuzan told CNBC by email.
Wildberries is a major player in Russia’s e-commerce sector, with the retail giant’s marketplace alone accounting for roughly 3% of Russia’s gross domestic product, Kuzan said, citing data from Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
He estimated that Wildberries’ total losses had reached approximately $2.3 billion, noting that the total amount of these losses exceeds the combined annual budgets 53 Russian regions, which will likely trigger a wave of bankruptcies among small- and medium-sized enterprises.
“Given the scale of the targeted facilities and their role in supplying both the civilian sector and the military-industrial complex, it can be assumed that this tactic will continue,” Kuzan said.
“It allows Ukraine to inflict disproportionately significant economic losses on the enemy with relatively limited resources,” he added.
By CNBC