Russia’s richest woman Tatyana Kim under siege as Ukraine targets her Wildberries empire

Tatyana Kim, the founder of Wildberries, the Russian version of Amazon, is facing one of the biggest challenges of her professional career. She overcame her ex-husband, the father of her seven children and navigated wartime Kremlin politics. But now her empire is burning, billions of dollars going up in smoke.

Ukraine's shifting war strategy

Ukraine's expanded bombing campaign has shifted strategy from energy infrastructure to major domestic supply networks, targeting Wildberries warehouses. Kyiv has targeted at least 23 warehouses night after night; nine of the company's workers have been killed.

There is no logic, common sense or rationality in the actions of the terrorists, nor can there be,” Kim said, referring to the Ukrainians. She said the “enemy” was trying to “apply pressure, destabilise and provoke panic and shock among a large number of people.” She said that the goods Wildberries were selling were no different from Amazon or Alibaba.

Many small businesses that store their inventories at Wildberries warehouses have seen their supply destroyed, pushing them into uncertainty about compensation and future sales. Ukraine argues that Wildberries, which accounts for 10 per cent of all Russian retail sales, supplies the Russian Army and is a legitimate target.

According to Moscow-based Data Insight, an e-commerce consultancy, Wildberries has lost as much as 480 billion rubles’ worth of goods and up to one-third of its warehouse space in the Ukrainian attacks.

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Kim's battle with her ex-husband

In 2004, Tatyana Kim approved a merger between Wildberries and Russ Group, a much smaller outdoor advertising firm. The move was personally overseen by Vladimir Putin. It was denounced by her ex-husband, Vladislav Bakalchuk, as a corporate raid. Bakalchuk co-founded the company in 2004 but held only a 1per cent stake and fiercely opposed the merger. So much so that he showed up with armed Chechens in the Wildberries office in Moscow. It resulted in the death of two people. Vladislav was backed by Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, and Kim was backed by Suleyman Kerimov, a powerful Kremlin-connected billionaire tycoon linked to Russ Group. Kim won the legal battle and stripped Bakalchuk of his 1 per cent share of Wildberries and also received $2.6 million in financial compensation. She divorced Bakalchuk and reverted to her maiden Korean name Kim, as well as won full custody of their seven children. Kim, 50, who defeated her ex-husband, backed by a Chechen warlord, is now scrambling to adapt to the new crisis hitting her empire.

Why is Wildberries important?

Wildberries controls roughly 45 per cent of Russia’s entire e-commerce market. It processes over 52 per cent of all online orders nationwide. It holds roughly 1 million independent sellers, and over 85 per cent of these are small and medium businesses. It employs roughly 4 million people across Russia. It has nearly 95,000 pickup points across the country, and more than half the nation’s population makes purchases at least once a month.

Wildberries has been moving to decentralise its distribution and redoing its logistics infrastructure as quickly as possible. The company has made two rounds of voluntary payouts to at least 80,000 small and medium businesses and is rolling out limited insurance that sellers can buy for drone attacks. Alexei Sazanov, the deputy finance minister of Russia, said that the government is planning an aid package as well as tax breaks for sellers.