How Russian E-Commerce Giants Shifted Drone Strike Liability to Merchants Overnight

In July 2026, a cascade of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian logistics infrastructure triggered an unprecedented shift in Russia's e-commerce landscape. Within days, the country's three largest online marketplaces—Wildberries, Ozon, and Yandex Market—rewrote their seller agreements to classify aerial attacks as "force majeure" events, thereby shifting the financial risk of destroyed inventory entirely onto merchants.

The Drone-Strike Wave

On the night of July 18, 2026, Ukrainian drones struck two Wildberries warehouse complexes in Elektrostal (Moscow region) and Kotovsk (Tambov region). At least eight workers were killed and more than 80 injured . The fire at Elektrostal, the company's major logistics center, sent a smoke plume drifting more than 200 kilometers and damaged up to 15% of Wildberries' total warehouse space .

Over the following week, strikes continued almost daily. Facilities in Krasnodar, Nevinnomyssk, Stavropol, St. Petersburg, the Leningrad region, and annexed Crimea were hit . The death toll rose to at least nine . Preliminary estimates from Meduza put seller losses at more than 150 billion rubles . The Kremlin acknowledged that both Wildberries and its merchants were "grappling with losses" .

How Each Platform Changed Its Seller Agreement

All three major platforms acted in rapid succession:

Wildberries amended its seller agreement effective July 7—eleven days before the first strike—to waive its obligation to compensate sellers for goods lost or damaged due to military actions, including drone strikes . The changes only gained broad public attention after the July 18 attacks .

Ozon revised its agreement effective June 12, adding language that it would not compensate sellers for goods lost or damaged due to "military action, a state of emergency, shelling, mass unrest, or other similar circumstances" . Media outlets did not notice the change until July 18 .

Yandex Market published a new seller agreement on July 20, effective the same day, that explicitly exempts the company from liability for "partial or full non-fulfillment of obligations" caused by emergencies including drone attacks and missile strikes . This made it the last of the three major marketplaces to adopt the change.

All three now classify aerial attacks as force majeure, placing the full financial risk of destroyed inventory on merchants .

Wildberries Removes the "Everything for SVO" Tag

After the attacks, Wildberries removed its "Everything for the Special Military Operation" product tag, under which more than 200,000 items had been listed . Searching for "SVO" or "everything for SVO" on the site now returns "No suitable products found" .

However, journalists and independent observers quickly confirmed that the removal was cosmetic. Body armor and protective helmets remain available in the "Sports" section; FPV drones and components appear in "TV, audio, photo, video equipment"; tactical backpacks and boots are found under "Bags & Backpacks" and "Footwear" . Many items still carry tags like "proven in SVO" or "used in the SVO zone" . Multiple outlets report that the tag was deleted, but the products were not .

Key Caveats

• The 35.5 billion ruble reconstruction figure for Wildberries warehouses could not be verified in any sourced report. The most concrete damage figure is Meduza's estimate of seller losses "more than 150 billion rubles" , which covers merchant inventory, not building reconstruction.
• Available sources confirm strikes in at least seven distinct locations (Elektrostal, Kotovsk, Krasnodar, Nevinnomyssk, Stavropol, Kirov region, and Crimea), but no single source counts exactly ten logistics centers hit .
• The contract changes were made very recently (July 18–22, 2026), and coverage comes primarily from independent Russian-language and exile media (Meduza, Vyorstka, The Moscow Times, Nasha Niva), not from official marketplace announcements.

What This Means for Merchants

For the thousands of small and medium-sized Russian businesses that sell through these platforms, the contract changes convert a wartime operational risk into a direct financial loss. Sellers who had inventory in Wildberries warehouses saw their goods destroyed with no legal path to compensation. Hundreds of sellers posted videos online complaining about their losses . Wildberries announced a "support measures" package but has not disclosed payment calculations or timelines .

Ukraine's drone campaign, initially focused on oil refineries and military infrastructure, expanded to e-commerce logistics hubs after Kyiv asserted that the warehouses were supplying sanctioned components for Russian drone production—a claim not independently substantiated .