Russia’s largest retailer Wildberries has begun searching for warehouse space in Kazakhstan, Moscow’s Kommersant newspaper has reported, citing sources in the real estate market. It comes after Ukrainian drone strikes damaged around 10 per cent of the online marketplace's logistics hubs in Russia.
One source told Kommersant that RWB Group, Wildberries’s parent company, was looking to acquire all vacant warehouse space in Kazakhstan. Another told the Russian newspaper, the firm was looking for 100,000 square metres of space, about the size of 14 football pitches, in the central Asian country.
RWB Group is supposedly unwilling to lease its available warehouses in Russia to Wildberries due to concerns they will also be targeted by Ukrainian drone strikes, one of the sources told Kommersant.
Since mid-July, Kyiv has carried out a series of attacks on warehouses belonging to Wildberries, which accounts for around 50 per cent of Russia’s online retail market.
The first major strikes on 18 July targeted warehouses in the Moscow region. Since then facilities across Russia have been hit, including in St. Petersburg, Russian-annexed Crimea and Krasnodar in the south of the country.
Kyiv has accused Wildberries of allowing the sale of items on its platform that can be used for military purposes, including bulletproof vests and fibre-optic cables for drones.
Tatyana Kim, founder of Wildberries, has described the attacks on warehouses as “terrible” for the company and offered condolences to friends and family of those killed and injured in the strikes.
The firm said it had paid more than 40 million roubles ($504,000) to seriously injured victims and families of the deceased since 21 July in a statement on Telegram on Tuesday.
Kremlin officials are discussing possible support measures for sellers who use the platform, including state-backed loans, tax breaks and subsidies.
Inna Marchenko, a Wildberries seller, said an entire shipment of pet food worth around 1.5 million roubles ($20,000) had been destroyed in a fire, triggered by a strike at one of the warehouses.
“I opened my account and realised that everything there had been destroyed. I just sat down and burst into tears. What else can you do in a situation like this? Given the number of responsibilities I have... I don't know what to do next,” she said.
Large businesses have also been affected. Marina Drozhzhina, E-Commerce Director at clothing brand Finn Flare estimated that around 35,000 items worth more than 100 million roubles ($1.2 million) had been destroyed in damaged warehouses.
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