Tatiana Bakalchuk, Russia’s wealthiest woman, has announced her divorce from her husband and business partner, Vladislav Bakalchuk. Vladislav is seeking the assistance of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to counter what he describes as a “hostile takeover” of their leading online retailer, Wildberries.
“I confirm the start of divorce proceedings,” stated Tatiana Bakalchuk, who founded Wildberries in 2004 and has an estimated net worth of $7.4 billion, in a video posted on her Telegram channel late Tuesday.
Vladislav Bakalchuk later informed state media that the couple did not sign a prenuptial agreement and will have to split their property equally. Tatiana Bakalchuk has not commented on the division of assets, only noting that her husband formally owns 1% of Wildberries.
Tatiana Bakalchuk’s announcement came after Kadyrov posted a video of his conversation with Vladislav Bakalchuk. In the video, the Chechen leader vowed to “return Tatiana to the family and protect a legitimate business.”
During their conversation, Kadyrov and Vladislav Bakalchuk accused the outdoor advertising firm Russ Group of attempting to “seize” Wildberries “under the guise of a merger.”
Last month, Wildberries and Russ Group announced a merger to create a joint digital trading platform named RWB. Russ Group’s Robert Mirzoyan is expected to become the chief managing director of RWB, with Tatiana Bakalchuk as its director general.
Business media labeled the deal “very strange” for presenting itself as a merger between equal partners. Wildberries is 20 times larger than Russ Group, with revenues of 538.7 billion rubles ($2.7 billion) last year compared to Russ Group’s 27.9 billion rubles ($300 million).
The independent business outlet The Bell suggested the RWB merger might be part of Russia’s wartime redistribution of assets, benefiting Kremlin-linked business figures.
“This is a blatant and brazen takeover,” Kadyrov said on Tuesday.
Kadyrov’s opposition to the merger is unexpected, given President Vladimir Putin’s support for the deal.
Reports on the RWB deal indicated that Bakalchuk and Mirzoyan presented the merger to Putin as a way to create “the world’s largest ruble-based digital banking network and payment system,” bypassing SWIFT and rivaling global giants like Amazon, Alphabet, and Alibaba.
Russia was cut off from SWIFT as part of Western sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
“I know the levers of this raiding process are in the hands of brothers Levan and Robert Mirzoyan, as well as several well-known Caucasians,” Kadyrov said without elaborating. “I can’t ignore fraud of this scale, so I’ll do everything I can and will go to the end.”
The Kremlin, when asked about Kadyrov’s comments, stated it was not involved in “family affairs and especially business relations.”
“We were indeed asked about the president’s instructions to support [the merger]. We can only support it. We’re not the executors. It’s up to corporate action,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
