How Much Are Ukraine’s Strikes on Wildberries Costing Russia?

Published on August 17, 2026 | Written by Alec Pow
This article was researched using 14 sources. See our methodology and corrections policy.

Ukraine’s strikes on Wildberries have created an identifiable physical-loss bill of roughly $3.4 billion to $4.5 billion from destroyed merchandise and estimated warehouse reconstruction alone. Broader assessments reported on August 17 put the damage as high as $6 billion, but that larger figure covers a wider set of losses and should not be treated as an audited bill. Recent Associated Press reporting describes a campaign that has moved well beyond one damaged depot.

That distinction matters because Wildberries is not absorbing all of the losses itself. Independent sellers own much of the merchandise. Pickup-point operators depend on parcel volume. Banks finance merchants whose stock has disappeared. Insurance may exclude drone attacks. Moscow has even discussed financial support. A warehouse fire can begin as property damage and end up spreading through several parts of the Russian economy.

Wildberries, often described as “Russia’s Amazon,” is both a huge civilian marketplace and, according to Ukraine, part of a logistics chain used to move some equipment useful to Russia’s military. The company and Kremlin deny that Wildberries supplies the Russian army. No reliable public estimate separates military goods destroyed in the attacks from ordinary consumer merchandise.

Article Highlights

• Published estimates put destroyed merchandise at 215 billion to 280 billion rubles and warehouse reconstruction at another 62.5 billion to 80.8 billion rubles.
• Those two physical-loss categories combine to roughly 277.5 billion to 360.8 billion rubles, or about $3.4 billion to $4.5 billion (at $30 per hour, earning that amount would take about 54 to 72 thousand years of full-time work, before taxes).
• Reuters identified at least 1.18 million square meters of damaged or destroyed warehouse space by August 7, representing more than one-fifth of Wildberries’ logistics capacity. Satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters provided one of the clearest independent measures of the damage.
• The merchandise inside the buildings appears to be worth several times more than the buildings themselves.
• Russia’s largest bank said about 300 businesses had already sought loan restructuring as the attacks weakened marketplace sellers and suppliers. Sberbank was considering higher provisions for possible loan losses.
• FP-1 long-range attack drones have been publicly priced at roughly $55,000 to $75,000 each, showing the enormous difference between the price of some attack drones and the value of large logistics targets.

How Much Have the Wildberries Strikes Cost Russia?

The strongest current estimate is not the headline-grabbing $6 billion (about 96 thousand years of full-time work at $30 per hour). It is the smaller number that can be reconstructed from identifiable categories.

Wildberries loss category	Published estimate	Approximate value in U.S. dollars
Destroyed seller merchandise	215–280 billion rubles	$2.66–$3.46 billion
Warehouse reconstruction	62.5–80.8 billion rubles	$772–$998 million
Combined physical-loss subtotal	277.5–360.8 billion rubles	$3.43–$4.46 billion
Broader current assessments	Multiple categories	Up to about $6 billion

The merchandise and rebuilding estimates come from calculations reported by Forbes Russia and summarized by The Insider’s account of the warehouse losses. The inventory estimate does not include the warehouse structures. The reconstruction calculation used roughly 70,000 rubles per square meter and did not fully price the equipment installed inside the buildings.

Add the two categories and the result is 277.5 billion to 360.8 billion rubles. Using the exchange rate reported around the same period puts the physical-loss subtotal near $3.4 billion to $4.5 billion.

That is already a huge number, but it leaves out sales that never happened, sorting machinery, transportation changes, seller financing costs, compensation, insurance gaps, temporary storage and the expense of shifting inventory to safer locations.

What This Is in Plain Terms

Wildberries is a marketplace and logistics company rather than a conventional retailer that owns every product on its shelves. Merchants send goods into Wildberries fulfillment centers, where products are stored, sorted and moved through a large network of pickup points. Wildberries-Russ reported more than 200 logistics facilities covering about 5.2 million square meters at the end of 2025, alongside massive volumes of merchandise moving through the platform. The company’s reported 2025 results put gross merchandise value at 6.1 trillion rubles.

This structure matters when a warehouse is destroyed. The owner of the building can lose the facility. Hundreds or thousands of merchants can lose the goods inside it. Pickup locations can then receive fewer parcels. Lenders may be left with borrowers whose inventory vanished before it could be sold.

It is not the same economic event as destroying a store stocked with merchandise owned entirely by one retailer.

Why Is Ukraine Targeting Wildberries?

The obvious question is why Ukraine would spend long-range weapons attacking what looks like an online shopping company.

Ukraine says some of the logistics facilities have another role. In a July 18 address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said struck logistics sites had been involved in distributing navigation systems, drone-production components and other equipment for the Russian army. That is an official Ukrainian allegation, not an independently audited inventory of what was inside each warehouse. Zelenskyy described the logistics targets as part of Russia’s war supply chain.

There is separate evidence that Wildberries carries products with military and dual-use applications. A review of Wildberries marketplace listings found body armor, field rations, first-aid kits, drone goggles and components that can have battlefield uses.

Wildberries and the Kremlin deny that the company supplies Russia’s armed forces.

The safest conclusion is narrower. Wildberries is primarily a civilian marketplace where military and dual-use products are also sold, while Ukraine alleges that parts of the logistics network are used to distribute war-related equipment. There is currently no credible public number for the value of military goods destroyed in the attacks.

The Most Expensive Thing in the Warehouse

The published damage numbers reveal one of the strangest parts of the Wildberries story.

Estimated merchandise losses of 215 billion to 280 billion rubles are roughly 3.4 times the estimated 62.5 billion to 80.8 billion rubles required to rebuild the warehouse space.

That means the steel, concrete and roof can be the smaller part of the bill.

The reason is density. A giant fulfillment center can contain an enormous amount of inventory belonging to businesses scattered across Russia. Burning one building can wipe out stock that merchants already paid to manufacture, import or finance.

The scale of that concentration became visible as more facilities were struck. By early August, independent satellite analysis had identified at least 1.18 million square meters of damaged or destroyed Wildberries warehouse space. The attacks have continued since that assessment.

An early July estimate had been much smaller. Kommersant calculated property losses of roughly 60 billion rubles and estimated that replacing 444,000 square meters could cost about 35.5 billion rubles. Those numbers are useful mainly as a snapshot of how quickly the bill expanded as more warehouses were hit.

Who Is Paying for the Damage?

Calling the entire amount a “Wildberries loss” makes the accounting sound simpler than it is.

Sellers pay first when their merchandise disappears. They may lose both the value of the stock and the revenue it was supposed to generate.

Wildberries pays for damaged facilities, rerouting, compensation programs and rebuilding.

Pickup-point operators can lose income without being struck at all. Their businesses depend on parcels moving through the warehouse network.

Banks can inherit the problem when merchants cannot repay loans. A seller that financed several months of stock can remain liable for the debt even after the goods are destroyed.

The Russian government may eventually absorb part of the cost. Moscow has discussed support that could include state-bank lending, tax relief or subsidies, according to reporting on possible government assistance.

This is how one warehouse strike can produce several different bills from the same fire.

The Hidden Cost: Insurance and Relocation

The warehouse rebuild estimates become much more painful if insurers do not pay.

Wildberries founder Tatyana Kim said the company’s large logistics sites were insured, but standard policies excluded terrorism and UAV attacks. Separate protection against those risks can be difficult to obtain for large industrial properties. Kim described the drone-attack insurance gap after the strikes.

That means “insured warehouse” does not necessarily mean “insured against the event that destroyed it.”

There is another cost that rarely appears in the initial damage estimates: changing where the inventory lives.

Wildberries began looking for as much as 100,000 square meters of additional warehouse space in Kazakhstan as the attacks intensified. Property-market sources linked the search to the need to reduce exposure to Ukrainian strikes. The company was already developing much larger facilities near Almaty and Astana. Kommersant reported the Kazakhstan expansion while the Russian warehouse network was under attack.

The public data are not good enough to calculate the relocation bill. It can still include extra rent, construction, duplicate capacity, longer trucking routes, inventory transfers and slower fulfillment.

Those expenses continue after a damaged warehouse has stopped burning.

Cheap Drones Create a Much Larger Bill

The Wildberries campaign also illustrates the strange economics created by long-range unmanned weapons.

Fire Point CEO Iryna Terekh has put the price of an FP-1 long-range attack drone at roughly $55,000 to $75,000 (about 0.9 to 1.2 years of full-time work at $30 per hour). Published reporting on the FP-1 describes a weapon built for deep strikes at a small fraction of the price of many conventional missiles.

The exact number of FP-1 drones used against Wildberries is not public, and there is no evidence that every Wildberries strike used that model. It would be misleading to divide billions in losses by $55,000 and claim that figure represents Ukraine’s actual return per drone.

The scale comparison is still useful.

A hypothetical 100 FP-1 drones at the published price would cost roughly $5.5 million to $7.5 million. A hypothetical 1,000 would cost $55 million to $75 million. Those figures are scenarios, not estimates of how many drones Ukraine used against Wildberries.

That price gap helps explain why long-range military drone costs have become so important. A relatively inexpensive aircraft can threaten infrastructure and inventory worth many times the price of the weapon.

Russia then has to decide how much to spend on intercepting incoming drones. Russia has also used the same cost imbalance against Ukraine through comparatively inexpensive Shahed-type attack drones.

Three Ways One Strike Can Multiply the Bill

Scenario 1: A 100,000-square-meter logistics building. Using the published reconstruction assumption of about 70,000 rubles per square meter, rebuilding that amount of warehouse space would cost roughly 7 billion rubles before fully accounting for specialized sorting equipment.

Scenario 2: Inventory is worth several times the structure. The aggregate estimates put merchandise losses at roughly 3.4 times warehouse reconstruction. If that relationship held at a single heavily stocked site, a building with a 7 billion-ruble reconstruction bill could represent far more value once the goods inside are counted. This is scenario math, not a claim about a specific Wildberries depot.

Scenario 3: The warehouse is rebuilt, but the network still changes. The owner may have to move inventory, lease temporary space, compensate merchants and redesign routes before the replacement facility is ready. None of those costs is captured by multiplying square meters by a construction rate.

This is why the visible fire damage is only the easiest part of the bill to count.

What We Verified

• Checked: Russian-media estimates cited by Reuters Breakingviews put direct economic impact in the $2 billion to $4 billion range before the latest attacks and broader assessments.
• Confirmed: An earlier Kommersant warehouse calculation put damaged property at about 60 billion rubles and replacement of 444,000 square meters at roughly 35.5 billion rubles, showing how much the estimates grew as the campaign expanded.
• Cross-referenced: The Kremlin publicly acknowledged that the Wildberries attacks were hurting businesses, while rejecting Ukraine’s military-supply allegations.

Answers to Common Questions

How much are Ukraine’s Wildberries strikes costing Russia?
The most defensible current physical-loss subtotal is about $3.4 billion to $4.5 billion. Broader assessments have reached roughly $6 billion.

Why is Ukraine attacking Wildberries warehouses?
Ukraine says some facilities are involved in distributing navigation equipment, drone components and other supplies useful to Russia’s military. Wildberries and the Kremlin deny that the company supplies the Russian army.

Is Wildberries a military company?
No. Wildberries is primarily a civilian e-commerce marketplace. Military and dual-use products are sold on the platform, but that does not make every warehouse or every item inside one a military asset.

Who owns the merchandise destroyed inside Wildberries warehouses?
Much of it belongs economically to independent merchants selling through the marketplace. This is one reason the loss spreads beyond Wildberries itself.

Could the final Wildberries bill rise above $6 billion?
Yes. Current physical-loss calculations do not fully price lost sales, seller failures, bad loans, relocation, temporary logistics capacity, higher insurance costs or possible government support. Any higher estimate would still need those categories documented rather than simply added as a headline number.