(KYIV) – Ukrainian drone strikes targeting the Russian retail giant Wildberries have destroyed an estimated 480 billion rubles (£4.4 billion, $6 billion) worth of goods and severely disrupted a critical dual-use military supply chain, according to analysis published on 27th August 2026.
The campaign, which began on 18th July 2026, has targeted more than 20 Wildberries warehouses and logistics facilities across multiple Russian regions. Ukrainian intelligence identified the company as a legitimate military target after discovering that Russian soldiers were purchasing vital supplies directly from the Wildberries app.
“Russian soldiers were actually buying vital supplies straight from the Wildberries app,” according to the Domino Effect channel, which cited Ukrainian intelligence findings. “Supplies like drone components, tactical gear, navigation equipment, and fiber-optic cables, all of which have obvious military applications.”
The first strikes hit warehouses in Elektrostal in the Moscow region and Kotovsk in the Tambov Oblast. On 20th July, a swarm of approximately 400 drones entered the Moscow region, with part of the swarm targeting a major Wildberries logistics centre in the Podolsk area.
Subsequent attacks struck two warehouses in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk on 22nd July, followed by three more warehouses in the St. Petersburg and Simferopol areas within 24 hours. The campaign remains ongoing, with additional strikes reported throughout August.
Data Insight, a Russian analytics firm, estimates that Wildberries has lost up to a third of its warehouse space, with some assessments suggesting close to half of the company’s national warehouse capacity has been affected. Data analyst Sergei Semko told The New York Times: “Wildberries has almost run out of its biggest warehouses. Every single day one warehouse after another is getting methodically destroyed.”
The financial impact extends far beyond the company itself. Unlike Amazon, which sells a significant portion of its own goods, Wildberries operates primarily as a marketplace for third-party sellers. Tens of thousands of small and mid-sized firms have lost either large parts of their stock or their entire inventory due to the drone strikes.
Denis Vetrennikov, the chief executive of SellerDen, told Forbes Russia that hundreds of thousands of businesspeople may have suffered losses. Estimates suggest that products worth between 215 billion and 280 billion rubles (£2 billion to £2.6 billion, $2.5 billion to $3.3 billion) have been destroyed, with the real figure potentially significantly higher.
Wildberries has largely absolved itself of responsibility. Before the drone campaign began, the company updated its seller policy pages to state that it would not be held liable for losses related to drone strikes or other military actions. A token compensation payment of 40 million rubles (£369,000, $470,000) was announced in late July, a fraction of the actual losses suffered.
Leningrad Governor Alexander Drozdenko has claimed the Kremlin will offer support through tax breaks, loan holidays, and preferential loan treatments rather than direct compensation payments.
The economic consequences are compounding. Many affected businesses are small operations with median revenues of approximately $7,500 (£6,500) and minimal financial buffers. Analysts warn that the share of troubled loans will increase, and the risk of freezing individual deposits is becoming increasingly real.
Borys Kushniruk, head of the Expert and Analytical Council of the Ukrainian Analytical Center, said the crisis is unfolding “amid accelerating inflation, currency depreciation, falling incomes of individuals and companies, and reduced access to working capital. The share of troubled loans will undoubtedly increase, and the risk of freezing individual deposits is becoming quite real.”
Wildberries sellers have reported significant delays in receiving payments for goods sold. On 13th August, some sellers were still waiting for payments for products sold more than 10 days earlier, despite a policy limiting payment transfers to five business days. One seller wrote: “To push us down even further at such a difficult time? It is inhumane. Do you really not understand the situation?”
An anonymous source told Reuters that the Kremlin lacks the resources to compensate affected sellers: “No one has that kind of money to support the sellers. We are talking about hundreds of billions of rubles.”
The economic strain is translating into public discontent. A Gallup survey found that 56 percent of the Russian population feel their living standards are becoming notably worse, the highest share recorded in 20 years of polling. The Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s disapproval rating has almost doubled compared to the same period last year.
Alexander Lunin, a Ukraine war veteran, has gone viral in Russia after filming himself threatening to stage an armed uprising against the Kremlin unless Putin agrees to meet him. In the video, which has amassed millions of views on Russian social channels, Lunin demands that Putin “tell the whole truth” about the way Russian troops are mistreated and abused by their commanding officers.
In a second video, Lunin stated: “If I don’t arrive at the Kremlin in the near future and speak live on the air right next to you, the army will turn its weapons against the Kremlin.”
In response to growing unrest, the Kremlin has intensified its crackdown on opposition. On 10th August, the Supreme Court barred Yabloko, the only anti-war political party in Russia, from running in September’s parliamentary elections. The party had been approved just five days earlier.
Yabloko has never crossed the 5 percent threshold required for parliamentary representation in over two decades of existence. It polled close to 3 percent this year, but the Kremlin labelled the party an “extremist” organisation for opposing the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The video analysis was published by The Domino Effect channel, which cited sources including Data Insight, Forbes Russia, Reuters, and The New York Times.
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