Around 1,500 sellers from Leningrad region suffer damage from Wildberries & Russ warehouse fires - governor

ST. PETERSBURG. July 30 (Interfax) - Around 1,500 sellers from the Leningrad region have suffered damage from fires at the warehouses of united company Wildberries & Russ (RWB), regional governor Alexander Drozdenko said on Thursday.

"The sum of the damage is significant. The company, for its part, is taking measures and trying to help - that is the right thing to do. But we as a region will not abandon our producers either," Drozdenko wrote on social media.

Drozdenko said that the region was prepared to offer affected businesses support in the form of concessional loans to supplement working capital. Starting from next week, the region's economic department will start organizing a regional command center to coordinate affected entrepreneurs, the marketplace and the region, as instructed by the governor. There are also plans to develop additional support measures for businesses "in case the concessional loan for working capital proves insufficient for a full recovery".

As reported, large-scale drone attacks have damaged several of the major logistics sites of Wildberries & Russ.

On July 18 and 22, logistics sites were hit by drones in Elektrostal in the Moscow region, Kotovsk in the Tambov region, Krasnodar in the Krasnodar territory and Nevinnomyssk in the Stavropol territory. On July 24, incidents were reported at warehouses in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region as well as Simferopol. A warehouse in the Penza region was also damaged on July 30.

The company has reported several evacuations and suspended operations at its sites in other Russian regions.