Husband of Russia’s richest woman arrested for murder after deadly shootout at offices of retail giant Wildberries

The estranged husband of Russia’s richest woman and CEO of retail giant Wildberries was arrested Thursday and charged with several crimes including murder, a day after a deadly armed raid at the company’s central Moscow offices.

Billionaire Tatyana Bakalchuk released a tearful message a day earlier, saying her husband Vladislav Bakalchuk, whom she is currently divorcing, led an armed raid into the Wildberries offices.  

Vladislav Bakalchuk’s lawyers said in a message on his social media page that he was “detained for 48 hours” and charged with murder, attempted murder, assault of a law enforcement officer and vigilantism.

Two people, including a security guard, were killed in the shooting at the offices, which lie a few streets away from the Kremlin.  

The incident came weeks after the company finalized a merger deal that Vladislav criticized and that strongman Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov vowed to stop.

Vladislav’s lawyers said he was on his way to a “pre-agreed meeting to settle a corporate conflict.”  Vladislav alleges that it was staff at the office who fired the first shots, the Reuters news agency reported.

But Bakalchuk called her husband’s claims “absurd” and said “no one agreed to any negotiations.”  

“Vladislav, what are you doing? How are you going to look in the eyes of your parents and our children?”

Wildberries is Russia’s largest online retailer. Tatyana Bakalchuk founded the company in 2004, growing it from an online clothes reseller into a major marketplace for countless other products, Reuters reported.

According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index in 2021, she was the 40th richest woman in the world and the first self-made woman billionaire out of Russia.

Tatyana Bakalchuk is the majority oner of the company, while her estranged husband holds a one-percent stake.