Kyiv accuses the e-commerce giant -- which employs tens of thousands of people and is sometimes referred to as "Russia's Amazon" -- of storing drone parts and helping the Russian army.Here is what we know about Wildberries and how it became a target for Ukraine, which has intensified its retaliatory strikes on Russia more than four years into the war.Series of attacksUkraine first targeted Wildberries on July 18, hitting a warehouse near Moscow and another in the Tambov region, south of the capital.
The strikes have sparked huge fires and killed at least nine people © TATYANA MAKEYEVA / AFP
It has since targeted around a dozen other warehouses across central and western Russia, from the southern Krasnodar region to the city of Sarapul, more than 1,200 kilometres (about 750 miles) from the front line.The strikes have sparked huge fires and killed at least eight people, according to officials.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described the warehouses as "logistics hubs involved in supplying the Russian army with drone components, navigation equipment and other gear."Both Wildberries and the Kremlin have rejected this characterisation.Since the strikes, the company appears to have removed a search tag from its website linked to Ukraine war paraphernalia.What is Wildberries?Wildberries is Russia's largest online retailer, accounting for up to 10 percent of the country's entire retail turnover, according to Russian media.The company has tens of thousands of pickup locations across the country -- even in remote villages -- and sells a dizzying range of products, from medicine to children's goods.
