TLDR: Ukraine’s attacks exposed Wildberries as more than an online retailer. Its merger with the much smaller Russ group—personally supported by Vladimir Putin and promoted as the basis of a rouble payment system capable of bypassing SWIFT—placed the company at the intersection of logistics, state finance and Russia’s sanctions-resistant economic ambitions. The opaque power struggle around Tatyana Kim does not prove why Ukraine chose Wildberries, but it reveals why the company had become strategically important.

BREAKING UPDATE — 31 JULY 2026: As this article was being completed, Ozon evacuated a logistics centre in Zelenodolsk, Tatarstan, during a Ukrainian drone alert. The facility was not damaged, and because Ozon and Wildberries operate sites close to one another, the intended target remains unclear. The incident changes the question behind this investigation. It is no longer whether Ozon will remain untouched, but why Ukraine’s campaign initially concentrated so heavily on Wildberries. At least a dozen of its warehouses have been attacked since 18 July.[1]

Part one of this investigation examined why Wildberries became a Ukrainian target. The company is not merely an online shop but a logistics network connecting manufacturers, merchants, payment services and consumers across Russia. Ukraine has cited the platform’s role in military supply and the availability of dual-use goods. The attacks have also damaged civilian supply chains, affected tens of thousands of sellers and forced Russian banks and government agencies to consider support measures.[2, 9]

Yet the warehouses explain only part of the target’s value. To understand what Wildberries had become, one must return to its unexpected merger with Russ, Russia’s largest outdoor advertising operator.

The transaction was economically peculiar. Wildberries was many times larger than Russ, yet the smaller company’s corporate vehicle received 35 per cent of the combined business. Wildberries retained 65 per cent, while Russ executive Robert Mirzoyan became the operational head of the new group.[3]

At the time of the merger, Tatyana Kim owned 99 per cent of Wildberries and her husband Vladislav Bakalchuk the remaining one per cent. These holdings were contained within the company controlling the 65-per-cent stake; they were not additional shares in the combined group. A Moscow court later transferred Bakalchuk’s share to Kim, leaving her as the sole owner of the company holding that majority stake.[4]

Kim was therefore not simply deprived of Wildberries. She strengthened her formal ownership of the original company while accepting a structure in which a much smaller partner received a substantial economic interest and its executive assumed operational control. How freely she accepted that arrangement cannot be established. Kim publicly defended the merger, while Bakalchuk portrayed it as an asset seizure. The public record documents her participation, but not the circumstances under which her decision was made.[5]

What can be established is that the merger was never presented as an ordinary combination of retail and advertising. Kim and Mirzoyan wrote directly to Vladimir Putin. Their proposal envisaged an international marketplace, digital banking network and rouble-based payment system designed to bypass the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, better known as SWIFT—the principal messaging network through which banks transmit cross-border payment instructions. Its proponents claimed that the system could eventually serve billions of users. Putin supported the proposal and instructed his economic adviser Maxim Oreshkin to assist with its implementation.[5]

This gave the transaction a strategic purpose. Wildberries brought customers, merchants, logistics and payment services. Russ brought advertising infrastructure and access to public spaces across Russia and potentially abroad. Together, they were presented as the foundations of a commercial system intended to reduce Russian dependence on Western financial networks.

The Kremlin later maintained that it had endorsed only the idea and had not intervened in the business process. But Russian law did not require presidential approval for the merger. The parties sought it because political endorsement can influence how regulators, officials and potential rivals respond. The significance lies not in proving that Putin dictated every detail, but in recognising that a supposedly private transaction was legitimised at the apex of political power.[5]

Russ had itself risen with unusual speed, consolidating much of Russia’s outdoor advertising industry and expanding across railway stations, airports, metro systems and other regulated environments. Russian business reporting has repeatedly connected that rise to Suleiman Kerimov, a sanctioned billionaire and member of Russia’s upper house of parliament. Mirzoyan acknowledges a friendship with Kerimov but denies that he financed or controlled Russ. Kerimov is not a documented shareholder of the combined company, but he is widely reported as an informal patron whose influence rests on political access rather than visible ownership.[5]

The opposing side turned to another centre of informal power. Bakalchuk appealed publicly to Ramzan Kadyrov, the authoritarian ruler of Chechnya, who denounced the merger as an asset seizure and promised to intervene. A disagreement that might formally have belonged before shareholders, regulators and courts was instead being conducted through competing political patrons.[5]

On 18 September 2024, Bakalchuk arrived at the Wildberries headquarters in central Moscow accompanied by a group of men. A confrontation with company security ended in gunfire, leaving two people dead and seven injured. Among those detained was a mixed martial arts fighter who served as deputy commander of a Chechen unit of Russia’s National Guard linked to Kadyrov.[6, 7]

The incident revealed more than a bitter divorce or a dispute over company shares. A merger backed by the president had become entangled with reported oligarchic patronage, a regional strongman and armed actors operating a short distance from the Kremlin. The Russian state was not absent from the conflict. Its power was present through personal access, patronage and coercive relationships rather than through predictable institutions.

The arrangement survived. The courts upheld the merger, Kim consolidated her ownership of the company holding the 65-per-cent stake, Russ retained 35 per cent, and Mirzoyan remained in operational command.[3, 4]

By 2026, Wildberries had also become more closely connected to Russia’s state-controlled financial system. VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank and a lender controlled by the Russian state, acquired five per cent of Wildberries’ banking subsidiary, WB Bank, with an option to increase its holding. After the warehouse attacks, Russian officials considered support measures in which VTB could play a central role.[8, 9]

The banking relationship may also have influenced Ukraine’s calculations. Denys Shtilerman, co-founder and chief designer of the Ukrainian weapons producer Fire Point, said that Wildberries was being targeted partly because of its partnership with VTB. His statement does not disclose how the Ukrainian military selected individual targets, but it establishes a public connection between the company’s financial integration and the strategic logic surrounding the attacks.[9]

This does not mean that Ukraine selected Wildberries because of Kim, Mirzoyan or the struggle over the merger. The stated rationale remains its contribution to military supply, its logistical importance and its position within Russia’s wider war economy.[2, 9]

The Kim connection nevertheless reveals what the company had become. Wildberries combined mass retail, logistics, payments, banking and millions of dependent businesses. Its merger had been personally endorsed by Putin and promoted as the foundation of an international payment architecture intended to bypass Western systems. Its financial arm was entering a partnership with one of Russia’s largest state-controlled banks.

Wildberries was no longer simply a marketplace that happened to sell militarily useful goods. It had become infrastructure at the intersection of civilian consumption, state finance and Russia’s effort to build economic resilience under sanctions.

The attacks did not make Wildberries strategic. They exposed how strategic it had already become.

Sources

[1] Reuters. “Russian E-Retailer Ozon Says Ukrainian Drone Alert Forces It to Evacuate Tatarstan Warehouse.” July 31, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/russian-e-retailer-ozon-says-ukrainian-drone-alert-forced-it-evacuate-tatarstan-2026-07-31

[2] Bryanski, Gleb. “Wildberries, ‘Russia’s Amazon,’ Becomes a Target for Ukraine.” Reuters, July 22, 2026. Updated July 23, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/wildberries-russias-amazon-becomes-target-ukraine-2026-07-22

[3] Financial Times. “Russian Court Approves Scandal-Hit Wildberries Merger.” January 10, 2025. https://www.ft.com/content/f1f60640-53f1-4bcb-b3f5-f8777fe61b5b

[4] The Moscow Times. “Moscow Court Awards Russia’s Wealthiest Woman Ex-Husband’s Stake in Online Retailer.” April 17, 2025. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/04/17/moscow-court-awards-russias-wealthiest-woman-ex-husbands-stake-in-online-retailer-a88775

[5] The Bell. “Shootout at Wildberries: Who’s Who in the Battle for Russia’s Amazon.” September 26, 2024. https://en.thebell.io/shootout-at-wildberries-whos-who-in-the-battle-for-russias-amazon

[6] Reuters. “Two Dead After Shooting at Moscow Office of Russia’s Wildberries.” September 18, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/one-killed-shooting-outside-moscow-office-russias-wildberries-2024-09-18

[7] Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “30 Held Over Deadly Shooting Outside Moscow Office of Online Retailer.” September 21, 2024. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-shooting-wildberries-bakalchuk-online-retailer/33128319.html

[8] Reuters. “Russian E-Commerce Giant RWB Plans VTB Alliance.” May 26, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russias-vtb-bank-acquire-5-stake-wildberries-owned-wb-bank-2026-05-26

[9] Bryanski, Gleb. “Russia Explores Support for Wildberries After Ukrainian Drone Attacks, Sources Say.” Reuters, July 28, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russia-explores-support-wildberries-after-ukrainian-drone-attacks-sources-say-2026-07-28

Picture Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ripe,_ripening,_and_green_blackberries.jpg