Russian Warehouse Workers Face Nightly Evacuations as Ukraine Targets E-Commerce

The alarm sounds at two in the morning. Workers at Russian e-commerce warehouses have learned not to ask questions—they grab what they can and move toward the exits. This has become routine. Ukrainian forces have made the logistics networks that power Russia's online retail into military targets, and the men and women who sort packages, manage inventory, and process orders now live under the assumption that any shift might end in an emergency evacuation.

Major retailers like Wildberries and Ozon, which together handle millions of daily transactions across Russia, have become focal points of Ukrainian strikes. The attacks are not random. They are part of a deliberate campaign to disrupt the economic infrastructure that keeps goods flowing to Russian consumers and, by extension, to sustain the broader war effort. Each strike on a warehouse is a strike at supply chains, at the ability of Russian commerce to function normally. But the cost is paid first by the people inside those buildings when the missiles come.

Workers describe a state of constant vigilance mixed with helplessness. They come to their shifts knowing that evacuation orders could come at any hour. The middle of the night is common—the timing offers no protection, only disruption. Some facilities have been hit multiple times. The fear is not abstract. It is the fear of death, of being in the wrong place when an attack lands. Employees have reported that the psychological toll is as real as the physical danger. Sleep becomes difficult. Concentration at work becomes harder. The baseline of normal working life has shifted into something else entirely.

The targeting of commercial warehouses sits in a gray zone of modern conflict. These are civilian facilities, but they serve the Russian economy and, by extension, the state's capacity to sustain itself. Ukraine's strategy appears to be to degrade Russia's economic function by making it impossible for major retailers to operate at full capacity. Warehouses damaged or destroyed must be rebuilt or replaced. Supply chains fracture. Consumers face shortages. The economy feels the pressure. But this economic pressure is applied through the bodies and nerves of workers who had no say in the conflict and who cannot simply choose to work elsewhere—jobs are scarce, and many have families depending on their wages.

The companies themselves have responded with emergency protocols. Evacuation procedures have been drilled and refined. Some facilities have been hardened or relocated. But there is no way to make a warehouse completely safe from a missile strike, and no way to eliminate the fear that comes with working in a place that has been marked as a target. Workers continue to show up because they need the income. The alternative—unemployment in a wartime economy—is often worse than the risk.

What is unfolding in these warehouses is a form of economic warfare that has direct human consequences. It is not soldiers in combat but civilians in work clothes, clocking in for shifts that might include a middle-of-the-night run for their lives. The conflict has reached into the ordinary infrastructure of commerce, and the people who keep that infrastructure running are now living with the knowledge that their workplace is a contested space. The question of how long workers will tolerate these conditions, and what happens to Russia's e-commerce sector if they cannot, remains open.