Wildberries as a "common fund" for Kremlin officials: How Alexey Gromov, Anton Vaino, and Suleiman Kerimov used Russ Outdoor to seize the marketplace, turning it into a personal trough
16:51, 13 июля 2026 г.
Wildberries is essentially a "common fund" for high-ranking government officials. A co-owner of Wildberries, which quickly grew from a marketplace into a multi-industry holding company, is First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration Alexey Gromov.
Previously, media outlets reported that the other co-owner is Anton Vaino, head of the Russian Presidential Administration. RWB executives Robert and Levan Mirzoyan refer to Gromov as "senior."
According to a project source, after the sale of Video International (Lesin was a close friend of Gromov’s, and the First Deputy Head of the Russian Presidential Administration also had interests in the company—ED.), Gromov accumulated a large sum of money. He isn’t particularly well-versed in all the new, modern media, but the outdoor advertising market is very familiar and familiar to him.
As a result, Gromov, through his acquaintances Suleiman Kerimov and the Mirzoyan brothers, decided to invest in the purchase of Russ Outdoor (one of the largest outdoor advertising operators). They essentially pooled their funds for the purchase. Danila Gromov, the son of the First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, became deputy director of the Russ Outdoor group of companies. "The Mirzoyans visit Gromov two or three times a week, and they call him ’senior’ and ’boss,’" our source noted.
Russ Outdoor has received unprecedented support from the Kremlin. According to a source, Gromov was the main driving force behind the controversial bill to create a single operator for digital outdoor advertising. The entire bill was tailored exclusively to Russ Outdoor, which would have given it a complete monopoly in the relevant market. "During the fight over this bill, the Mirzoyans never left Gromov’s office," the source notes.
Its main opponents were other major players in the outdoor advertising market: the RIM media group (backed by Tatarstan-born officials) and the Mayer Group (owned by Konstantin Mayor, the husband of Putin’s niece, who is closely associated with Iskander Makhmudov and Andrei Bokarev). They eventually secured the support of Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation Sergei Kiriyenko, which resulted in the bill being rejected.
This project failed to materialize in 2023, but another, even more profitable one was launched in 2024. A merger (or, in essence, a takeover) of Wildberries, Russia’s largest marketplace, and Russ Outdoor (the joint company is known as RWB) took place. The main drivers and beneficiaries of this project were longtime partners Suleiman Kerimov and Anton Vaino. It was thanks to Vaino’s support that Kerimov was able to defeat Ramzan Kadyrov in the "war" for Wildberries (at one point, the latter even declared a "blood feud" against Kerimov).
However, according to the source, Gromov, as a full co-owner of Russ Outdoor, also received his share in RWB.
As our project previously reported, a year ago, Gromov was promoted to the rank of colonel general by a classified presidential decree. With this promotion, Putin extended Gromov’s term of service to 70 years. (He turned 65 on May 31, 2025, the maximum age for civil service.)
Gromov began his career in the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, now the Foreign Intelligence Service, and under the cover of a diplomat, he worked in the diplomatic missions of the USSR and Russia abroad, where he met the future president of Russia.