Have you ever wondered how much it costs to buy a drone, body armour, a combat helmet, a body bag or an AK assault rifle magazine in Russia? Not on the dark web, but on the open internet. To buy these items on Wildberries – the Russian answer to Amazon – would cost you (in order) as little as the equivalent of £41.95, £220, £90, £6.10 and a cheap and cheerful £5.50.
It’s for this reason that the online retailer, owned by Russia’s richest woman Tatiana Kim, has become the latest target for Ukraine in its effort to fend off Russia’s invasion. Starting on 18 July, the Ukrainian army has begun sending drones into the country to attack warehouses and logistics centres belonging to Wildberries on a near-nightly basis.
So far, Ukraine has successfully struck 21 Wildberries warehouses across Russia. The first to be targetted was based in Elektrostal, just 37 miles from Moscow. Since then, drones have penetrated deeper into the country, reaching as far east as a facility in Yekaterinburg (880 miles from Moscow and over 1,000 miles from the border with Ukraine), as far north as the outskirts of St Petersburg and as far south as Stavropol, close to the border with Georgia. At least nine people are thought to have been killed in the attacks and more than 110 injured.
