Ukraine states that the purpose of the drone campaign is to destroy logistics hubs used to deliver equipment and sanctioned components to the Russian army. Russian officials deny that e-commerce platforms are being used for military deliveries, but according to Russian military bloggers, the platforms are used by volunteers to purchase equipment that is then sent to the front lines. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented on the events, saying:
We are, quite rightly, taking the war back home – to Russia.
Unlike, for example, Amazon, which sells its own goods alongside its marketplace, Wildberries and its competitor Ozon function almost exclusively as platforms that connect independent sellers with buyers. The platforms are estimated to be used by 85 to 90 percent of Russia's economically active population. As warehouses are now being destroyed, it is therefore thousands of small and medium-sized businesses that are bearing the direct economic losses.
An e-commerce seller of clothing states that she has lost goods worth just over 180,000 Swedish krona and that she is now pausing new deliveries. She said:
The prospects of working with Wildberries are very unclear. I currently have enough buffer to survive the current losses, but if there are more attacks, I will probably not survive.
A crucial factor for e-commerce sellers is that Wildberries updated its agreements less than two weeks before the attacks. The company then added a clause classifying drone attacks as force majeure, meaning that the e-commerce company is not financially obligated to compensate the merchants for the destroyed goods. Tatiana Kim has announced that the company will not abandon the sellers and has offered some temporary discounts and waived shipping fees, but most merchants do not expect any financial compensation for their lost inventory.