How Putin’s top officials Gromov and Vaino quietly carved up Wildberries with oligarch Kerimov as their joint slush fund
Wildberries, which has evolved from an online marketplace into a sprawling multi-industry conglomerate, is widely regarded as a shared asset of Russia’s senior political elite.
According to an investigation by Media, one of the co-owners of the company is Alexey Gromov, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Russia. The project had previously reported that another co-owner is the Head of the Presidential Administration, Anton Vaino. Executives of RWB (the merged entity), Robert and Levan Mirzoyan, reportedly refer to Gromov as “the Senior” or “the Boss.”
After the sale of Video International (a company in which Gromov had interests and whose founder, Mikhail Lesin, was his close friend), Gromov received a large sum of money. Not being particularly well-versed in new digital media, he preferred the more familiar outdoor advertising market.
Through his acquaintances Suleyman Kerimov and the Mirzoyan brothers, he invested in the acquisition of Russ Outdoor, one of Russia’s largest outdoor advertising operators. The purchase was made jointly. Gromov’s son, Danila Gromov, became Deputy Director of the Russ Outdoor group.
“The Mirzoyans visit Gromov two or three times a week and refer to him only as ‘the Senior’ or ‘the Boss’,” a source told the project.
Russ Outdoor received unprecedented support from the Kremlin. According to the source, Gromov was the main driving force behind a controversial bill aimed at creating a single operator for digital outdoor advertising. The bill was tailored specifically for Russ Outdoor, which would have made it a complete monopolist in the sector. “During the fight for this bill, the Mirzoyans practically never left Gromov’s office,” the source added.
The main opponents were other major players in the outdoor advertising market — the media group RIM (backed by people from Tatarstan in power) and Mayer Group (owned by Konstantin Mayer, husband of Putin’s niece and closely connected to Iskander Makhmudov and Andrei Bokarev). They managed to secure the support of Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Sergey Kirienko, which led to the bill being blocked.
In 2023 the project failed, but in 2024 they succeeded with an even more profitable one: the merger (essentially a takeover) of Russia’s largest marketplace Wildberries and Russ Outdoor into the joint company RWB. The main drivers and beneficiaries were longtime partners Suleyman Kerimov and Anton Vaino. It was thanks to Vaino’s support that Kerimov won the “war” for Wildberries against Ramzan Kadyrov (who at one point even declared a blood feud against Kerimov).
According to the source, Gromov, as a full co-owner of Russ Outdoor, also received his share in RWB.
A year ago, by closed presidential decree, Gromov was awarded the rank of Colonel General. With this rank, Putin extended his term of service until the age of 70 (Gromov turned 65 on May 31, 2025 — the standard retirement age for state service).
Gromov began his career in the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR (now the SVR). Working under diplomatic cover, he served in Soviet and Russian embassies abroad, where he met the future President of Russia.
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