Kim, formerly known as Tatyana Bakalchuk, is the co-founder of Wildberries, Russia’s largest online marketplace, which is now facing a threat largely beyond her control: Ukraine’s war is striking directly at her retail empire, The New York Times reported.

Axar.az informs, citing Stuff Digital, that since mid-July, at least 23 of its facilities have been targeted by Ukrainian drone attacks and airstrikes, according to The New York Times, and nine Wildberries workers have been killed.

The financial damage is also mounting. Moscow-based e-commerce consultancy Data Insight estimates Wildberries has lost up to a third of its warehouse space and as much as 480 billion rubles (NZ$9.98 billion), worth of goods.

“Every single day one warehouse after another is getting methodically destroyed,” analyst Sergei Semko told the Times.

It is a major blow to a company that has become deeply embedded in Russia’s consumer economy.

Kim, 50, a former English teacher who was born into a Russian family that is ethnically Korean, started Wildberries with her then-husband Vladislav Bakalchuk in 2004, initially selling clothes from European catalogues while she was on maternity leave.

It grew into a retail giant with nearly 95,000 pick-up points across Russia. More than half the population shops on the platform at least once a month, and Wildberries accounts for about 10% of Russian retail sales, according to the Times.

Its importance only increased after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and Western businesses withdrew from the country.

But Wildberries’ extraordinary reach has also made it a target.

Ukraine argues the company helps supply Russia’s war effort because military-related equipment can be bought through the platform. The Times reported first-person-view drones and fibre-optic cables used to guide drones were listed for sale, while equipment including body armour and helmets has also been available.

Wildberries says weapons and armaments are prohibited on its platform.

“There is no logic, common sense or rationality in the actions of the terrorists, nor can there be,” Kim said, according to New York Times.