Attacks on Wildberries warehouses threaten to trigger a wave of business bankruptcies in Russia

Representatives of small and medium-sized businesses in the Russian Federation are facing the threat of closure and mass bankruptcy due to the loss of property resulting from attacks on Wildberries marketplace warehouses, which will lead to a halt in tax revenues to the budget. 

Marina Gorshkova, founder of a cosmetics brand, stated this in her appeal to the Russian government. She emphasized that her company alone has paid 45 million rubles in taxes over the past year and a half, and now has nothing left.

To resolve this critical situation, Gorshkova proposed that, instead of direct compensation, the Russian authorities exempt affected sellers from paying taxes for at least one year and require banks to grant them payment deferrals. The entrepreneur also called on officials to intervene in Wildberries’ operations due to the company’s failure to fulfill the terms of its own contracts and its blocking of the export of unsold merchandise. According to her, the lack of state support threatens to result in the loss of property for many sellers—numbering about one million—and significant losses for the Russian treasury.

Source: The Moscow Times.

Drone attacks on Wildberries’ warehouses have begun to affect the Russian e-commerce market. Due to rising risks, suppliers are reducing the volume of shipments to the marketplace’s warehouses, which could lead to higher prices for goods and a partial return of shoppers to traditional retail.

Wildberries has removed the search for military goods under the query “Everything for the Special Military Operation.”

As a reminder, Ukrainian drones struck six Wildberries warehouses in Russia and Crimea.

Estonian intelligence has estimated Russia’s losses from the strikes on Wildberries at $2 billion.