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Europe|2 Dead in Moscow Shooting Tied to Russia’s Richest Woman
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/europe/russia-shooting-wildberries-bakalchuk.html
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Tatyana V. Bakalchuk, the founder of Russia’s biggest online retailer, has been locked in a dispute with her estranged husband for months over the fate of her company.
Sept. 18, 2024, 1:44 p.m. ET
Russia’s richest woman accused her estranged husband of trying to forcibly capture her company with a retinue of armed men on Wednesday, as the couple’s bitter dispute over Russia’s biggest online retailer escalated into a shootout at the company’s offices in downtown Moscow, leaving two dead, five wounded and dozens detained.
The dispute between the couple, Tatyana and Vladislav Bakalchuk, has been at the center of Russia’s business world for months, even drawing the involvement of the strongman leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. At stake is not only their marriage but the fate of the company Ms. Bakalchuk founded, Wildberries, a marketplace that processes more than 12 million orders every day and had sales of more than $27 billion in 2023, according to news reports.
The shooting took place just opposite the Kremlin, in the lobby of one of the most prestigious office buildings in Moscow, according to a video from the scene that was published by state news agencies. The video showed burly men bickering, with at least one of them brandishing and then shooting a gun.
Mr. Bakalchuk told RBC, a Russian business news outlet, that he had arrived at the offices on Wednesday with “colleagues” to conduct “peaceful negotiations” about the construction of new warehouses.
“But at the entrance I was attacked by security guards,” said Mr. Bakalchuk, who has a small stake in the company. He added that one of his associates was wounded in the skirmish.
Ms. Bakalchuk denied her husband’s claims, saying in a statement posted on the social media site Telegram that no negotiations between them were planned. Ms. Bakalchuk, the majority owner of Wildberries, added that her husband had made a “failed attempt” of a “corporate raid.”
