Three weeks ago, Vasily Klimov's Wildberries pick-up point in Moscow was a healthy small business. Now it is a loss-making operation he is desperately trying to sell. He's not alone, as over 3,100 Wildberries franchised pick-up points were listed for sale across Russia on online marketplace Avito as of Wednesday.
Since July 18, attacks on around 20 of the company's sites have sparked major fires, destroyed entire warehouses of stock, and disrupted its vast logistics network. A Reuters review of satellite imagery found the damage is severe, at least 1.18 million square meters of storage space, more than a fifth of the company's capacity, has been damaged or destroyed.
Wildberries, together with other e-commerce platforms, handles goods and services worth the equivalent of 8.5% of Russia's economy, which is a far bigger footprint, relative to GDP, than Amazon has in the US.
