Husband of Russia’s richest woman arrested over deadly office shoot-out amid bitter divorce

An acrimonious divorce involving Russia’s richest woman descended into a gun battle over the country’s most successful online retailer, killing two people and wounding seven.

Tatyana and Vladislav Bakalchuk, the estranged couple who founded Wildberries, known as Russia’s Amazon, blamed each other for Wednesday’s shoot-out at the company’s head office in Moscow.

Mr Bakalchuk was arrested and charged with murder, attempted murder, assault of a law enforcement officer and vigilantism the following day.

The fight broke out when Mr Bakalchuk, who owns 1 per cent of the company and had appealed to Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen Republic ruler, to stop his wife pushing through a controversial merger, showed up at the office.

He claimed that he was there to “negotiate” but was shot at by people inside the building.

What happened next is hotly disputed.

Footage taken by witnesses showed a brawl breaking out at the entrance to the office.

A group of men believed to include Mr Bakalchuk can be seen attempting to storm the building in one video, while a man smashes his way through a glass door.

After the man lunges through, several gunshots can be heard.

Separate videos from inside the office show one man, possibly a security guard, reaching for his handgun and firing at the invaders.

Mr Bakalchuk’s lawyers called the charges against him a “flagrant and unprecedented violation” of his rights, and said the allegations fly in the face of witness testimony and video evidence to the contrary.

In a statement describing the incident, they said: “Upon arrival, Vladislav and his representatives encountered aggressive actions from law enforcement officers and office security. As a result of this clash, a shoot-out occurred, in which the office security officers were the first to open fire.”

“Among the guards they hired were terrorists – people with a criminal past. It was they who opened fire to kill Vladislav and his representatives.”

Mrs Bakalchuk strongly denied the claims.

“Today a group of people led by Vladislav Bakalchuk [...] attempted to seize Wildberries’ offices in Moscow,” she said on Telegram.

“To my deep regret, as a result of the armed attack on Wildberries, a security guard at our office was killed,” she said.

“Statements about supposed negotiations that the armed group showed up to are absurd, given no one agreed to any such negotiations.

“This is a hostile takeover. Or rather, an unsuccessful one,” she added.

A second guard died in hospital from wounds sustained during the incident after Mrs Bakalchuk’s statement was made.

In a tearful video posted online, she asked: “Vladislav, what are you doing? How will you look into the eyes of your parents and our children? How could you bring the situation to such absurdity?”

The incident is reminiscent of “corporate raiding” that blighted Russian businesses in the 1990s and 2000s, when rivals would seek to seize assets by showing up with armed men and taking control of a company’s office, instead of buying shares.

Mrs Bakalchuk founded Wildberries by selling clothes from her Moscow apartment while on maternity leave in 2004. Her husband joined the company shortly afterwards.

It has since grown to become Russia’s largest online retailer and sells everything from beauty products to furniture and pet food.

It employs tens of thousands of people and has made Mrs Bakalchuk one of only two Russian female billionaires.

In 2023, Wildberries allowed authorities to raid several of its warehouses in search of migrant workers to draft into their war against Ukraine.

Police searched the head office in January after a mysterious fire destroyed one major warehouse in St Petersburg and $191 million worth of stock.

Last month, Russian soldiers sent to push the Ukrainians out of the Kursk region were caught on security cameras looting a local Wildberries depot.

Mrs Bakalachuk announced she was filing for divorce in July, triggering an instant quarrel about division of assets. Mr Bakalchuk said they did not sign a prenuptial agreement and believes he is entitled to half the company.

But there is another layer to the dispute.

Around the same time as the couple’s split, Wildberries announced a merger with Russ Outdoor, a billboard advertising giant controlled by two brothers called Robert and Levan Mirzoyan.

The deal, which Mrs Bakalchuk described as part of a plan to expand the brand into Central Asia and eventually rival Amazon or Ali Baba, reportedly won the blessing of Vladimir Putin.

Kremlin sources told Bloomberg in June that the tie-up was also intended to build an alternative to the SWIFT money transfer system that many Russian banks have been blocked from since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

However, Mr Bakalchuk argued that his wife was tricked into what he calls a wildly lop-sided “mistake” that would see a large chunk of the company’s wealth given away to Russ Outdoor, a much smaller firm, for no apparent benefit.

The deal involved transferring 35 per cent of the company to a joint venture with Russ Outdoor, Forbes reported.

Merger is ‘fraud’

Mr Bakalchuk appealed to Mr Kadyrov, who decried both the merger and the effect of divorce on the children in a recorded meeting. The Chechen warlord promised to “return Tatyana to the family and protect a legitimate business”.

In July, Mr Kadyrov publicly described the merger as “fraud” and a corporate “raid” before explicitly blaming the Mirzoyan brothers.

The brothers have not directly commented on the controversy, although Robert Mirzoyan has given interviews explaining his vision for the merger.

In a joint statement, Russ Outdoor and Wildberries said: “Wildberries and Russ continue to operate in a stable mode [...]. We are confident that the details of the divorce process and emotional details are of no interest to business publications.”

For now, law enforcement appears to have taken Mrs Bakalchuk’s side.