Throughout World Conflict II, Soviet authorities moved trade and folks – usually forcibly – away from the frontier in Europe into the heartland of Eurasia. The strategic relocation of factories and significant manufacturing to the Urals, Siberia, and Central Asia essentially modified economies throughout the union.
Now, amid a unique warfare on the European entrance, Russian trade is wanting once more to Central Asia for relative security to proceed conducting enterprise.
Wildberries & Russ, the mother or father firm of Russia’s largest e-commerce retailer, Wildberries, reportedly signed an funding settlement this week with the Uzbek Ministry of Funding, Business, and Commerce to broaden its logistics capability in Uzbekistan. The deal comes within the wake of an early August announcement from Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Commerce and Integration that Wildberries would broaden its warehouse capability in that nation.
Beginning in July 2026, Ukraine started focusing on main Wildberries warehousing amenities in Russia. Via mid-August, Ukrainian drones had struck at the very least 20 Wildberries hubs, a lot of them close to Moscow. In accordance with the Moscow-based e-commerce consultancy Knowledge Perception, as reported by DW in mid-August, Wildberries had misplaced 480 billion rubles value of products ($5.7 billion) and a 3rd of its warehouse area.
As The Diplomat’s Albert Otkjær identified in August, WIldberries’ effort to construct out its warehousing capability in Kazakhstan predates the present disaster – although not the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Wildberries’ growth into Kazakhstan started in 2023, when the corporate opened its first logistics heart in Astana, adopted by a warehouse complicated in Almaty. In September 2023, Wildberries opened a sorting heart in Uralsk, the corporate’s fifth logistics heart within the nation.
Equally, in Might 2023 Wildberries opened its first logistics heart in Uzbekistan, within the Tashkent area, adopted by plans for a second in Fergana. In October 2023 Wildeberries introduced that it could construct one other logistics heart within the Tashkent area.
The just lately introduced deal pertains to a deliberate logistics hub within the Zangiata district of the Tashkent area, to be constructed on a a 67.3-hectare website. In accordance with the corporate, the power will generate at the very least 7,500 jobs.
As such, the wave of assaults this summer time focusing on Wildberries isn’t the only motivation for its efforts to broaden capability in Central Asia. These efforts started earlier. The area is, even absent the continuing battle, a big marketplace for Russian corporations and a bridge deeper into Asia. Factoring within the warfare in Ukraine solely deepens the industrial logic for growth into Central Asia.
It additionally deepens the dangers. Ukrainian authorities have justified the strikes on an ostensibly civilian enterprise by arguing that Wildberries warehouse are “concerned in supplying the Russian navy with drone elements, navigation tools, and different gear,” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in late July.
Equally, Ukraine justified assaults on Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) infrastructure close to Novorossiysk – in November 2025 and July 2026 – given the crucial significance of oil revenues to the Russian warfare machine. However collateral harm to Kazakhstan’s export of oil by way of the CPC led to pushback from each Astana and Washington. In February 2026, Ukraine’s ambassador to the US stated that Kyiv had acquired a proper demarche from Washington. The criticism, Ambassador Olga Stefanishyna stated, cited the dangers posed to “American investments that are being carried out by way of Kazakhstan.”
In early August, Bloomberg reported, citing a U.S. official, that Ukraine had agreed to not strike CPC infrastructure crucial to Kazakhstan’s oil exports within the Black Sea, in addition to keep away from putting non-Russian vessels – supplied they’re not individually sanctioned or carrying Russian cargo.
May Ukrainian drone strikes goal Wildberries amenities in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan? It’s extremely unlikely, although not unimaginable because the warfare drags on. Such a strike would mark a major growth of the battle and be ruinous to Kyiv’s relations with the Central Asian states, and sure the US, too, given Washington’s intercession on Kazakhstan’s behalf in regard to the CPC.
