CHATHAM HOUSE Will Ukraine’s Wildberries attacks force Putin to the negotiating table? Drone attacks strike at the bargain between Russia’s state and business. But Russia’s business elites seem more dependent on the Kremlin than ever. - Published 28 July 2026 —

CHATHAM  HOUSE 

Will Ukraine’s Wildberries attacks force Putin to the negotiating table?

Drone attacks strike at the bargain between Russia’s state and business. But Russia’s business elites seem more dependent on the Kremlin than ever.

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Published 28 July 2026 —

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Image — A helicopter flies past smoke rising from a warehouse near Saint Petersburg hit by Ukrainian drones early on 24 July 2026 . (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Natalya Kovaleva

New Generation Europe Foundation Academy Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Programme

Last week, Ukraine expanded its drone and missile attacks, striking warehouses belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest online marketplace. Kyiv said the locations were being used to store military-related goods, including drone components. 

Nine warehouses were hit, killing at least nine people and destroying the inventory of thousands of businesses that sell through the platform. Early estimates by Forbes Russia suggest that losses from the first day of the strikes alone amounted to between RUB 150 to 235 billion ($1.9 to 3 billion).

Ukraine’s earlier strikes have largely focused on military and energy targets. But these recent attacks have targeted a highly successful business with a nationwide logistics network that accounts for over 50 per cent of all online retail orders in Russia. Many enterprises have suffered serious losses, since Wildberries facilities were reportedly not insured against attacks of this kind.

Over the past four and a half years, Russian businesses have faced numerous disruptions due to the war in Ukraine. Western sanctions fractured supply chains. Tax increases squeezed margins. Internet blackouts disrupted operations. And recent fuel shortages drove up costs while adding to inflationary pressures. 

Russia’s business owners have largely absorbed these shocks. But Ukrainian strikes on Wildberries present a significant new development, reflecting Kyiv’s broader effort to ratchet up economic pressure on business and ordinary Russians. Ukraine’s hope is clear: that by making the war too costly for Russian businesses, internal opposition will mount and Putin will be forced to the negotiating table, or at least to halt his bombardment of Ukraine’s cities.

It remains to be seen if this strategy will have the desired effect. Even as it becomes even harder to do business in Russia, the country’s elites appear more dependent on – and wary of – the Kremlin that ever before.

Demands of wartime economy 

Whatever their military significance, these strikes are bringing the war closer to Russia’s population. Much like recent strikes on oil refineries, the Wildberries attacks have produced towering plumes of smoke visible for miles around. In some cases, they have taken days to extinguish. 

The destruction has left both the Russian state and Wildberries grappling with questions of compensation, protection of civilian infrastructure, and the longer-term economic consequences of repeated attacks on critical commercial assets. 

The options for mitigating these costs appear limited. Tax relief for a company as large as Wildberries would place unwelcome additional strain on the federal budget. Relocating logistics hubs to ostensibly safer areas in the Urals or Siberia would be very costly. 

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In fact, the burden of protecting commercial infrastructure from Ukrainian attacks is increasingly falling on companies themselves. In recent weeks, some oil firms have resorted to improvised defensive measures, such as installing steel cable barriers over refineries. Companies have reportedly spent over $1 billion on these and other air defence measures. 

The Kremlin has remained conspicuously quiet about the Wildberries attacks, offering little beyond vague acknowledgements of the ‘difficulty’ of the situation. But it is notable that on 22 July, Wildberries owner Tatyana Kim announced that the company would begin compensating those affected, prioritizing what she estimated to be 88,000 smallest and most vulnerable sellers. 

The pledge was striking given that, just 11 days before the first attacks, Wildberries is reported to have amended some seller contracts to classify drone strikes as force majeure, limiting its liability for such losses. 

It seems the burden of the financial fallout is falling on businesses – big and small – reinforcing a broader wartime trend in which the state expects the private sector to absorb the economic consequences of the conflict.

The end of the old rules

Even those closest to the centre of power are not exempt. At a closed-door meeting in March, Putin reportedly urged major business owners to donate funds to the war effort, seeking not only material support but demonstrations of loyalty. 

The business elite knows that the ground is changing under its feet. 200 major companies have faced nationalization proceedings since the start of the war. Prosecutors have cited alleged corruption, extremism, and unlawful privatizations dating back to the early 1990s as grounds for asset seizures.

With fewer effective levers to influence political decisions, business elites are left increasingly vulnerable and dependent on the Kremlin. 

Business now operates in an environment defined by uncertainty and shifting political expectations. The recent arrest of Ilya Traber, a prominent 75-year-old businessman with links to Putin dating back to the 1990s, shows that old relationships no longer provide protection. 

Reports indicate that Traber, a St Petersburg port tycoon, was detained in connection with an old contract killing case (Traber denies any wrongdoing). His arrest came two weeks after Ukrainian drones hit the St. Petersburg oil terminal, coinciding with the opening of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russia’s equivalent of Davos. The attack was a huge embarrassment for Putin.

Recent arrests of business figures with links to Putin allies Arkady and Boris Rotenberg have reinforced the message: no one can assume they are beyond the Kremlin’s reach. 

Few business leaders have publicly criticized Putin’s policy on war costs or the war itself. The closest thing to an intervention by business in recent weeks has been a cautious essay by Andrey Melnichenko published last month in the Economist – but the article, while keen to discuss what will follow the war, steers clear of overt criticism of the government’s conduct. 

The result is a breakdown of the established rules of the game that long underpinned relations between the state and big business. With fewer effective levers to influence political decisions, business elites are left increasingly vulnerable and dependent on the Kremlin. 

A common thread runs through all these developments: neither small businesses nor politically connected elites can count on the state to provide a stable business environment – or to shield them from Ukrainian drones, mounting losses, or the state’s own interventions. Property rights are even more uncertain. And proximity to power no longer guarantees security.

It could be that over time this pressure will tell, and Russian business will form a united front, arguing – privately or publicly – for the need to change course. But most would think twice before investing in that outcome. Instead, it seems for now that Russian business is maintaining its bargain with the Kremlin, even as the terms become less favourable.

For those Western companies weighing a possible return to Russia when the war ends, this shift deserves careful consideration. The business environment they left in 2022 simply no longer exists.