Why is Ukraine hitting warehouses of Russia’s Amazon equivalent Wildberries?

Imagine Amazon warehouses being attacked on American soil, workers getting killed and injured, big financial losses and the supply chain of daily-use things getting disrupted. This is what is happening deep inside Russian territory.

In the space of a few days, Kiev has targeted Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries, numerous times.

Why are the attacks happening?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accuses the Russian military of using Wildberries to source and transport dual-use electronics, sanctioned items, and critical drone components.

Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre, a Kiev-based analytical think tank, says striking Wildberries’ warehouses is central to damaging the supply line of Russian weapons.

“The primary rationale for striking Wildberries’ warehouses is to disrupt Russian logistics and the supply of dual-use goods, critical electronics, sanctioned goods and the like to the Russian army and Russian arms manufacturers,” he said to the BBC.

But it’s not just the military that Ukraine is targeting. Kiev wants to inflict maximum cost on the Russian economy.

“The collateral damage from such strikes could also have a serious impact on the Russian economy, as well as a psychological effect on Russian society and, likely, on continued support for the war,” Kuzan said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denies accusations from Ukraine that Wildberries handles military supplies.

The attacks on the online retailer also serve as asymmetric retaliation for Russia’s relentless strikes against Ukraine’s various civilian infrastructures and its domestic postal service, Nova Poshta (New Post).

What happened to Nova Poshta?

Russian forces had damaged or destroyed more than 400 of Ukraine’s postal service’s branches and terminals by the start of 2026.

June 15 saw three Russian ballistic missiles striking Nova Poshta’s largest sorting centre in Kiev. And on July 19, a terminal in Kharkiv was destroyed.

The Russian Ministry of Defense justified these attacks by claiming that civilian logistics hubs are being used to store Ukrainian military cargo, foreign equipment, or drone manufacturing components.

Is it a war cime?

The attacks on Wildberries have raised an important question: are Ukraine and Russian attacks on civilian facilities a war crime?

The opinion is divided, according to Meduza — an independent Russian media outlet.