The Ukrainian Drone Attacks on Wildberries

The Magyar Bird Strategy to Weaken Russian E-Commerce

Wildberries is the largest Russian online retailer, comparable in business strategy and operations to Amazon.com. Estimated revenues in 2025 were at least $15 billion, accounting for more than 40% of Russian online retail sales. Wildberries fills 7 million orders per day. Its founder and CEO is Tatyana Kim, mother of 7 children, whose net worth is now estimated at 8.1billion.

Kim was born in 1975 in Grozny, Chechnya, USSR. She is of Korean descent. She met and married Vladislav Bakalchuk around 2001. She conceptualized and tested the idea of Wildberries, starting with selling used clothes, while she was on pregnancy leave as an English teacher. Following the birth of their first child in 2004, she launched Wildberries without any capital. Bakalchuk, however, a talented engineer and entrepreneur, sold his internet service company, Utech  for $7.5 million. By 2006, increasing success and expanded sales lines, inventory, and logistical advantages resulted in moving Wildberries’  headquarters to Moscow. By 2022, Wildberries was the largest E-store in Russia, also doing considerable international business. In 2026, the company uses all the advanced AI, robotic, automation, and safety equipment available to it. The company is under U.S. sanctions. This has not stopped Wolfberries’ phenomenal growth. Wildberries’s revenue increased 98% in 2025 and is forecast to grow 35-40% in 2026 and 2027.

In 2024, Wildberries merged with Russ, the largest advertising operator in Russia. This left Kim with 65% of the joint RWB company, which according to Forbes is valued at $12.9 billion. Bakalchuk, however, believed  the RWB merger was a hostile takeover and asset grab. This was also the opinion of other prominent Russians. Strong disagreements resulted in an “office meeting” where two people were shot dead and another 7 wounded. Charges were dropped against Bakalchuk, but Kim and Bakalchuk were divorced in 2025. A court ruled in favor of Kim in removing any Bakalchuk retention of Wildberries or RWB shares.  

From July 18 through July 25 of this month, Ukrainian drones have struck 8 Wildberries warehouses, killing at least 10 employees and injuring at least 72.  Meduza, an anti-Putin Russian and pro-Ukrainian regime publication now located in Latvia, and alleged to be funded largely by U.S. government sources, has estimated repair and rebuilding will cost $460 million, but the value of the inventory may have been $1.9 billion. This is believed to be between 7-10% of their total inventory.  In my opinion, Meduza made some credible estimates of casualties and costs early in the war (2022) but is now under increased influence by foreign funding and intelligence sources.  

Tatyana Kim vows that she will rebuild or repair the Wildberries facilities whatever the costs in order to keep serving the Russian people. However, I am certain that the Russian government will help with a large part of that. Wildberries already receives a government subsidy for high-technology companies free of any foreign financial obligations.

According to the Ukrainians, the purpose of the drone strikes against Wildberries is to  turn the Russian people against the war by making their lives more difficult. They are especially targeting the ability of small businesses to reach their customers. A substantial amount of Wildberries revenue comes from small businesses selling on the internet. I think there is also a much larger reason. In order for Ukraine to keep getting heavy financial, weapons, and intelligence  support from the United States especially, but also other NATO and EU nations, they must look like they are doing substantial harm to Russia and winning the war, even though they are clearly losing by any well-informed and objective standards. They are running out of Ukrainian soldiers due to both combat losses and desertions. They have practically no air and missile defenses left. They continue to lose territory, and the Russians have now closed all Ukrainian shipping on the Black Sea, and it appears they intend to take Odessa, which is predominantly Russian ethnic anyway.  The loss of Odessa would cripple the economic independence of what would be left of Ukraine. If you depend on U.S. government agencies and mainstream media for the full and objective truth about the Ukraine (or Iranian) War, you are probably only a few months away from an earth-shaking disappointment.

It is most probable that long-range FP-1 (Fire Point 1) Ukrainian loitering Kamikaze drones were used to hit the Wildberries warehouses. These carry explosive charges of 130 to 270 pounds. Their range is about 600 miles carrying the lower weight and 300 miles carrying the heavier weight. The FP-1 speed varies from about 125 mph to 200 mph depending on the weight. They are driven by a two-cylinder piston engine and have an approximately 7-foot straight-wing span. They are built for stealth and usually navigate to their target close to the ground to avoid detection and have a radar targeting guidance system. Their average cost is about $55,000.

Russian, Ukrainian, and Iranian drone and missile strikes are often accompanied by swarms of 400 or more smaller drones and decoys. Longer ranges, however, limit support from drone swarms. There are numerous effective ways of destroying or preventing drones from hitting their target: jamming, electronic capture or confusion, nets, wires, or simply shooting them down with anti-aircraft weapons, and even small arms. There are also specialized drone tracking  and destroying weapons that can be operated by a single soldier.

The most common Ukrainian drones used on the battle field are the American made Switchblade 300 and 600. These are only 20 to 50 inches in diameter and carry 5-10 pound explosive packages. These are very dangerous to enemy personnel but also armored and other vehicles. The Switchblade 600 can be operated by a single soldier and destroy a tank.

As of February 2024, the Ukrainian Armed Forces has a new separate branch called the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF). On paper, the USF is supposed to have 40,000 to 80,000 personnel in 8 brigades, a regiment, and assorted 6 independent battalions and units. As of June 3, 2025, they are commanded by Major Robert Brovdi, nicknamed “Magyar.” Brovdi is from the Zakarpattia (Western Carpathia) oblast in western Ukraine that borders Hungary and has a 20% Hungarian minority. Brovdi, born in 1975, is himself an ethnic Hungarian and thus a “Magyar.” Brovdi joined the Ukrainian Army as a platoon leader the first day of the Ukraine War, February 24, 2022.  Having received a degree in Enterprise  Economics in 1997, he had been a successful business leader and co-founder of the Granum grain trading company, which became one of the top five grain export companies in Ukraine. He also owned a real estate company.  

By May 2022, Brovdi had created a separate unit of 26 aerial reconnaissance specialists using drones. The unit soon became known as Magyar’s Birds. Brovdi was soon convinced that drones had far more than reconnaissance usefulness. He had a growing conviction that drones could become a decisive aerial strike weapon. In March 2023, Magyar’s Birds became a company of unmanned aerial systems strike specialists. In October 2023, a report for 110 days in June through September showed that Magyar’s Birds had struck 514 targets of which 309 were destroyed. In January 2024, Magyar’s Birds were reorganized into the 414^th Separate Strike UAV Battalion of the Ukrainian Marine Corps.

In comments to the media, Brovdi consistently emphasized the importance of striking personnel as one of the key factors affecting the course of combat. He continued to have significant success, although the media numbers seem to reflect the usual exaggerated Ukrainian General Staff propaganda initiated by the CIA to convince the U.S. Congress and NATO that Ukraine is winning the war.

Whatever the real numbers, it became obvious that Ukraine drone strikes were having a substantial impact on slowing down Russian movement. Russian advances had to avoid high troop concentrations and work in teams of 3 to 6 until larger units were able to advance in numbers.

Brovdi has also proven himself to be an organizational genius in training and transforming the USF into a well-coordinated team using the most sophisticated planning, technologies, equipment, logistics, communications, and immediate reporting and analysis of results.

Brovdi is now focused on strategic depth strikes into Russia. He has had some success against refineries, but they are still mere pin pricks. The Russians also have a genius for countering new tactics, weapons, and strategies.

The latest Brovdi strategy is wrecking a high percentage of Wildberries warehouses. So far, the Ukrainians have exploited weak defenses around such warehouses. The Russians will now correct that weakness. The Russians, by the way, now have about 6 times as many drones as the Ukrainians, and they are improving with new ideas and renovations. Meanwhile the Russians are pounding Kyiv and Odessa with missiles and bombs. Russian troops are capturing the last heavily fortified cities in the Donetsk oblast of the Donbas. Ukraine has negligible defense. against missiles and Russian aircraft and absolutely no defense against Russian hypersonic missiles.

On May 8, 2025, Robert Brovdi was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine, somewhat like the Soviet designation Hero of the Soviet Union, a very rare honor of true significance. With  this, he was awarded Order of the Gold Star—"for personal courage and heroism shown in defending the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and selfless service to the Ukrainian people.” 

“There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all hell.”—Union General William T. Sherman, after the Civil War

“Men acquainted with the battlefield will not be found among the numbers that glibly talk of another war.”—Dwight D. Eisenhower

“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”—George Orwell

“The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him.”—Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian Christian author, philosopher, and military engineer (1821-1881).