Wildberries founder remains Russia’s richest woman despite $2.1 billion loss

Forbes has published its latest ranking of Russia’s 20 richest women, with their combined wealth falling sharply over the past year. The total declined from $25.75 billion in 2025 to $18.95 billion in 2026, a drop of $6.8 billion.

Tatyana Kim, founder of Wildberries, topped the ranking for the fifth time. Her estimated fortune, however, fell by more than $2 billion, from $7.1 billion last year to $5 billion. Forbes attributed the decline to the fall in the stock market and Ukrainian drone attacks on the marketplace’s warehouses.

Five women lost their billionaire status: Tatyana Volodina, co-owner of the L’Etoile and Podruzhka retail chains; Natalia Lutsenko, co-owner of the Sodruzhestvo agricultural holding; Victoria Mikhelson, owner of the GES-2 House of Culture; Lydia Sulteeva, co-owner of Vulkan; and Tatyana Litvinenko, a former shareholder of PhosAgro.

As a result, the number of Russian female billionaires fell from nine to four. Besides Kim, they are Elena Baturina, president of Inteco Management; Lyudmila Kogan, principal shareholder of Uralsib Bank; and Ekaterina Fedun, daughter of former Lukoil co-owner Leonid Fedun.

Larisa Prokopyeva, founder of Evalar, Russia’s largest dietary-supplement manufacturer, returned to the ranking with an estimated fortune of $450 million. She last appeared on Forbes’ list of Russia’s richest women in 2021.

Forbes noted that the 2026 ranking contains no newcomers for the first time. The magazine attributed the trend to declining share prices on the Moscow Exchange and a slowdown in consumer-facing sectors of the economy amid the Central Bank’s high interest rates.

By Tamilla Hasanova